THE UNTOLD STORY OF DOUGLAS MAC ARTHUR

THF UNTOLD

STORY OF
DOUGLAS

MACARTHUR

BY FRAZIER HUNT

This is the living, breathing story of one
of the greatest men of our time, who
so far has been one of the least under
stood.

It is the story also of that broad seg
ment of American history which Doug
las MacArthur personally did so much
to write.

There never has been a book quite like
this — with its power and sweep and
fierce passion for the truth. It is the
book that in a very real way America
has been waiting for. It is Everyman's
MacArthur, the full-length story of the
boy, the man, the General,

FRAZIER HUNT'S friendship with Doug
las MacArthur began on the battlefields
of Franqe during World War I. The
young general, not quite six years the
author's senior, had already caught the
allure of Pacific destiny by the time that
Hunt made his first long trip to the
Orient — Japan, Siberia, China, the
Philippines, Australia, Southeast Asia,
India. Both Hunt and MacArthur, from
their separate viewpoints, early foresaw
that America's destiny lay in the Pacific,

(Continued on back flap)

92 Mll6h & l I ? -1 8 3

Hunt

The untold story of Douglas

f.lacArthur.

Kansas city public library

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OTHER BOOKS BY FRAZIER HUNT

Blown in By the Draft

The Rising Temper of the East

Sycamore Bend

Ouster: The Last of the Cavaliers

Bachelor Prince

This Bewildered World

One American

Little Doc

The Long Trail from Texas

MacArthur and the War Against Japan

Cap Mossman: Last of the Great Cowjnen

IN COLLABORATION WITH ROBERT HUNT

/ Fought with Glister
Horses and Heroes

THE UNTOLD
STORY OF
DOUGLAS
MacARTHUR

FRAZIER HUNT

THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY
NEW YORK • 1954

Copyright 1954 by Frazier Hunt, All rights

reserved. No portion of this book may be

reproduced in any form, except by a reviewer

who may quote brief portions in a review,

with written permission of the publisher,

The Devin-Adair Company, 23 East 26th Street,

New York 10, N. Y.

Canadian agents: Thomas Nelson Be Sons, Limited, Toronto

Manufactured in the United States of America

by American Book-Stratford Press, Inc., New York

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 54-10811

First printing, October 1954
Second printing, October 1954
Third printing, November 1954
Fourth printing, December

"Great minds are like eagles, and build
their nests in lofty solitude."

SCHOPENHAUER

6 1 1 O 4 3 3

To Arthur MacArthur
a fine young American

CONTENTS

PART ONE

THE MAKING OF THE SOLDIER, 1880-1930

1 Army Brat 3

2 The Long Gray Line 18

3 "The Power That Rules the Pacific . . ." 34

4 A Wild Night in Vera Cruz 48

5 Rainbow Over France 60

6 The End of the Rainbow 84

7 Back to West Point 98

8 Return to the Philippines 112

PART TWO

THE FIGHT FOR PREPAREDNESS, 1930-1941

9 The First Battle 133

10 The First Penalty for Opposition 153

11 The Long Years of Exile 1^9

12 The Race Against Time 209

13 "7 Shall Return!" 223

PART THREE

ENEMIES ON TWO FRONTS, 1942-1945

14 1942 — War on a Shoestring 275

15 1943 — The Bitter Year 297

16 MacArthur Escapes the Trap 314

17 1944 — The Magic Touch at Leyte 337

18 1945 — Luzon, the Brilliant Campaign of Liberation 356

P ART FOUR

NO SUBSTITUTE FOR VICTORY, 1945-1954

19 A Sunday Morning on the Battleship Missouri 379

20 MacArthur Saves Japan From the Reds 40?

21 ... While Washington Lets China Go Communist 432

22 A War He Was Not Permitted to Win 451

23 "The Crime of the Century" 478

24 Old Soldiers Never Die . . . 516
Index 2

MAPS

Where American troops saw service in France in 19*7-1918 65

Where the 42nd (Rainbow) Division fought in 1918 81

The fighting on Luzon and the side-slip into Bataan 231

Corregidor Island 241

The defense lines on Bataan 247

Outline of the continental United States superimposed on the area of the

early counteroffensive in the Southwest Pacific theatre 274
MacArthur's Southwest Pacific theatre 279
Importance of the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul 283
How the Japs tried to double-envelope Port Moresby in New Guinea 289
MacArthur prepares to take the offensive in New Guinea 29$
The offensive in the Solomon and Bismarck seas 305
The great "bear hug" that won the strategic seas 527 x

The vital naval battle that saved Leyte Gulf 346
The key battle lines of the Korean war 455

PART ONE

The Making
of the Soldier

1880-1930

ARMY BRAT

Douglas could never recall any but the vaguest memories of
the years at Fort Wingate, the lonely little frontier post in the
Territory of New Mexico, close to the Arizona line. He was a
babe in arms when in July 1880 the MacArthur family of five
made the trek there from the Rio Grande.

It took the train of army wagons eight pitilessly hot days
and eight miserably cold nights to cross the high desert plateau.
It was Indian country; to the north of the post stretched the vast
Navajo reservation, and on west from the Arizona Territory
•border lay the wild mountainous area of Apache Land.

The Captain's wife and the three little boys took it all in
true frontier style. There was no coddling of army wives and
army brats in those hard-bitten days. They all shared the hard
ships, the lonely years and eternal fears with the men in their
dusty blue uniforms.

Toward evening the little world about the lonely post of
Fort Wingate became afire with color. The boom of the sunset

$

gun rolled across the parade ground after the clear notes of the
bugle sounding retreat. Often in later life Douglas MacArthur
said that his first conscious memory was the sound of the bu
gles.

In the Spartan life of the old army the growing child was
conditioned by influences and experiences that were tamped
down into his subconscious being. And inextricably interwoven
with these, his own early memories, were the memories of vivid
stories told to him by his father; tales of the Civil War and of
the long and colorful years when he served on the Indian fron
tiers of the Wyoming and Nebraska country.

So it was that the events of his father's early army life be
came as real to the young boy as his own daily experiences. It
was almost as if he could remember far back beyond even his
birth: remember Abraham Lincoln, the charge up Mission
Ridge, the high mountains of the North West, the mule trains
and dusty troopers, marching infantrymen and bearded scouts
and the pungent smell of sweaty cavalry horses, the echoes of
sunset guns and bugles sounding all the day through from re
veille to taps.

On a May day in 1862, when Douglas' father, Arthur Mac-
Arthur, was about to turn 17, he had journeyed the long way
from Milwaukee to Washington, with a letter of introduction
from the Wisconsin governor to Abraham Lincoln. The slender
boy was taken to the President by Senator Doolittle, and the
tall, gaunt Lincoln had put his arm around the boy's shoulders
and explained sympathetically there were no more Presidential
appointments to West Point for this June, but that the next
year he could have one. And the President added that he had
a boy of his own who wanted to go to war.

But the war drums had been beating a full year and young
Arthur could wait no longer. His father, Judge Arthur Mac-
Arthur, at one time lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, called
on his friends in Milwaukee, and the boy was made a first lieu
tenant and adjutant in the newly organized 24th Wisconsin
Infantry. At his first parade formation the young officer's
high-pitched voice broke, and he took a good-natured ribbing
from his comrades. But a few weeks later when the outfit saw
its first service at the brisk little skirmish at Perrysville, Ky.,
4

and then shortly at Stone River, near Murfreesboro, Tenn., the
boy adjutant with the high-pitched voice proved his bravery
and leadership. He rallied the broken companies and was con
stantly in the center of the hardest fighting. Fear was not in
him. For the next year and more the regiment was to serve in
Phil Sheridan's Third Division, and on its battle streamers
were such names as Chickamauga, Mission Ridge and Lookout
Mountain.

At Mission Ridge the 24th Wisconsin with other regiments
of the grd Division was standing in ranks at the foot of the
steep and dangerous slope that rose in front of them, its
wooded face cut by enemy rifle pits and gun emplacements.
Generals Grant, Thomas and Sheridan sat their horses to the
rear. Suddenly Sheridan was seen to lift his hat, and Captain
Parsons, temporarily in command of the Wisconsin outfit, tak
ing the gesture as a command to advance, ordered his regiment
forward. As Captain Parsons, the sergeant with the colors and
Adjutant MacArthur moved ahead with their own cheering
troops close behind, the regiments on their left and right ad
vanced, and shortly thousands of men were sweeping up the
ridge, regardless of the murderous fire that poured down on
them.

Far up the desperate slope the regimental color bearer of
the 24th, still in the van of the advancing line, suddenly col
lapsed and the flag went down. The 1 8-year-old MacArthur ran
ahead, picked up the flag and shouted for the men to follow
him. In a matter of minutes the boy had planted the banner
on the crest of the ridge that had shortly before seemed al
most invincible.

One or two of the mounted officers at the foot of the long
slope, watching the wavering line through their field glasses,
saw the gallant incident. A recommendation for a Medal of
Honor was made, but somehow it was lost in the whirl of
events: it was almost 30 years later in a review of Civil War
medals that the oversight was corrected and the then Major
Arthur MacArthur of the Regular Army was granted the simple
bronze decoration that has no peer in the world.

Shortly after the incident on Mission Ridge, when the greatly
depleted regiment found all its field officers either killed or

discharged from service on account of wounds, an election was
held for a major who would be commanding officer. Without a
single protest from any of the older captains, Lieutenant Mac-
Arthur was advanced over their heads and chosen major and
regimental commander. He was 181^ years old.

By the early spring of '65 the determined Confederate troops
found themselves trapped and beaten everywhere by over
whelming power, and young MacArthur knew that the war
would soon be over. He wanted a commission in the Regular
Army to make soldiering his life's profession. He had not yet
turned 20, but he wore the silver leaves of a lieutenant colonel
on his shoulders, and he would soon be breveted a colonel of
volunteers.

The war had been over only a few weeks when young Mac-
Arthur led the proud remnants of his regiment in its home
coming parade down Milwaukee streets. Of the 75 officers who
had entrained that rainy afternoon of November 5, 1862, all
but 25 had been killed or wounded or taken prisoner. Of the
1,050 men, exactly 334 were still in line.

It was the stories of such deeds and glories that filled the im
agination and the memory of the boy Douglas.

While he waited in Milwaukee and hoped for an appointment
in the newly re-organized Army of the United States, young
Colonel Arthur MacArthur read law. The studious habits he
acquired never left him. Some ceaseless lash of ambition drove
him to use his spare hours in study and in quiet preparation
for whatever life might hold for him,

On June 25, 1866, slightly over a year after he had been
mustered out of service, he received his commission as a first
lieutenant in the re-organized Regular Army. Within three
months he was commissioned a captain in the g6th Infantry,
then on the Indian Frontier under the command of the griz
zled old fighter, Brevet Major General John Gibbon, one-time
commander of Wisconsin's famous Iron Brigade. Three years
later the g6th was consolidated with the 7th Infantry and
shortly afterwards Captain MacArthur was assigned to K
6

Company, igth Infantry, then at Fort Rawlins, Wyoming Ter
ritory.

Once again the young soldier was in Indian country — the
beautiful, high country, with its constant excitement and the
eternal hope of action that somehow never quite came off. In
lonely evenings years later the captain used to tell his sons
about these days when he had helped guard the vanishing fron
tier. Douglas and his brother never tired of hearing the tales of
Custer and Wesley Merritt and the incomparable Ranald Mac-
Kenzie. The three had been West Pointers of the classes of '61
and '62, and like the young boy colonel, from Wisconsin, they
had won fame in their youth.

Ordinarily -Captain Arthur MacArthur was a reserved man,
but in the eyes of his little boys he was the most romantic fig
ure that ever lived. They would never lose the love of country
and flag and honor that he implanted in them. And there was
another word — duty — that he constantly used.

In October of 1874 Captain Arthur MacArthur and his com
pany were ordered to Jackson Post near New Orleans. In seven
years of soldiering in the high Indian country, Arthur MacAr
thur had discovered that there was much justice on the Indian
side. Many years later when stars were on his shoulders instead
of captain's bars, the harsh truths that he had learned in the
long fruitless campaigns and endless duties on the Indian fron
tiers were to be of great value in solving the problem of han
dling the Filipinos and their demands for independence. He
passed these lessons down to his sons Douglas and Arthur.

Yankee soldiers were far from popular in the New Orleans
country a decade after the war ended. Nevertheless there were
many marriages between southern girls and northern men in
uniform. During the Mardi Gras festival in 1875 Captain Mac-
Arthur met Mary Pinkney Hardy, a lovely young lady from
Norfolk who had come down to spend the gay season with
friends.

When she returned to the large family home at Riveredge,
at the foot of the bridge across the river at Norfolk, in what
later was called Berkley, it was not long before the Yankee sol
dier reported there.

It became a legend that at the wedding, May 19, 1875, two

7

of the bride's brothers who had attended the Virginia Mili
tary Institute and fought for the Confederacy were conspicuous
by their absence; it seemed quite sufficient to them that three
of the older sisters had already married northerners whom they
had met at the family summer home in Massachusetts. Time
however was to dull the tiny feud. In the late fall of 1951,
when General of the Army Douglas MacArthur paid his first
visit to Norfolk since boyhood, he spoke at the dedication of a
memorial erected by popular subscription on the site of the old
Colonial house where his mother was born. He made proud
reference to his mother's brothers who had fought for the Stars
and Bars: "From this spot Hardys followed *Marse Robert's'
flag on Virginia's bloody fields — and a Hardy was at 'Old Jack's*
elbow that dark night when he fell on the sodden Plank Road
near Chanceliorsville."

Mary Pinkney Hardy, known in the family as Pinky, on both
ancestral sides was from early American stock that had settled
in Virginia and North Carolina before the turning of the i8th
century. She was born on May 22, 1852, the eleventh of
fourteen children, ten of whom grew to maturity.

For many years her father, Thomas Asbury Hardy, was a
successful cotton broker in Norfolk, and in 1858 he purchased
a vast plantation called Burnside, five miles from Henderson,
North Carolina. It may have been that some ray of intuition
led the father to anticipate the outbreak of the great civil con
flict, and thus provide a refuge for his family when actual war
broke.

After the war the family moved temporarily to Baltimore,
where Mary and three of her sisters for a time attended the
Convent of the Visitation Order in Catonsville, Maryland, al
though her parents were not Catholics. The rest of her educa
tion came from private tutors. Shortly the family returned to
the great house on the outskirts of Norfolk. Here the go-year-
old Yankee captain and the lovely 22-year-old southern aristo
crat were married by Rev. Father Matthew O'Keefe, the rector
of St. Mary's Church — her personal choice at the time. Later
the bride was to become permanently associated with the Epis
copal Church.

The first son, Arthur, Jr., was born August i, 1876, while the
8

captain was on detached duty in Washington. Four months
later he and his family reported back to his K Company, igth
Infantry, at New Orleans. A second son, named Malcolm, was
born in October of '78.

K was moved to the government arsenal at Little Rock the
following year, and it was in a pleasant two-family dwelling in
Officers Row that Douglas came into the world on January
26, 1880. Five months later K Company joined the rest of
the igth Regiment at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, but almost
immediately K, with four other companies and the regimental
band, was ordered to Las Lumas on the Rio Grande in New
Mexico, to embark on the eight-day wagon-train journey to dis
tant Fort Wingate.

Two years later the captain was granted the first long leave
in his 17 years of regular service, and the family spent six
months at the great house in Norfolk. Toward the end of the
holiday death struck blindly at the little family. Two faded
yellow telegrams that are still preserved tell the story.

BANKERS AND MERCHANTS TELEGRAPH CO.

NORFOLK, VA.
APRIL 9, 1883
TO ADJUTANT GENERAL,
U. S. ARMY
WASHINGTON, D. C.

TWO OF MY CHILDREN ARE ILL ONE DANGEROUSLY AND PERHAPS
FATALLY SO I WOULD LIKE TO REMAIN DURING CRITICAL PERIOD AND
THEREFORE ASK ONE WEEKS EXTENSION OF MY LEAVE DIRECTLY FROM
THE DEPARTMENT

ARTHUR MACARTHUR JR.

CAPT. 1TH INF.

A wire came back granting the request. A second wire was
dispatched almost immediately to the Adjutant General:

ONE OF MY CHILDREN DIED LAST NIGHT ANOTHER NOT MENTIONED
IN PREVIOUS DISPATCH NOW ILL UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES I ASK
TEN DAYS FURLOUGH EXTENSION OF MY LEAVE IF CONSISTENT WITH
INTERESTS OF SERVICE

It was the middle son named Malcolm who had succumbed
to the virulent outbreak of measles. His death proved a terrible

9

blow to the mother. But gradually the sorrow was forgotten In
her growing devotion to her son Douglas, It never failed in i*
completeness to the day when she died 52 years later.

This devotion between him and his mother was one of the
dominant factors of his life. When he was 71 and returned
from Korea, exalted by the nation's reaction to his recall, he
stood on the spot where the Hardys had lived so long and re
ferred to her as "my sainted mother/'

The MacArthur family numbered only four when orders came
for K Company to march overland from Fort Wingate the 300
miles to tiny Fort Selden, roughly 60 miles above El Paso and
the nearby Fort Bliss. It was a matter of accepted army rou
tine that this austere assignment had come to Captain MacAr
thur.

The single-story, flat-roofed adobe buildings of the little post
lay in a windswept bend of the river, on the east bank of the
Rio Grande. To the north was the forbidding and waterless
desert that for more than 200 years the Spanish had called
La Jornada del Muerto, the Journey of Death, The Mascalero
Apache Indian reservation was a bare hundred miles to the
east, across the San Andres Range and the deadly white sands.
Beyond the Sacramento Mountains stretched the broad Pecos
Valley.

Company K with its two or three officers, its assistant sur
geon and 46 enlisted men comprised the lonely garrison. Most
of the time Mrs. MacArthur was the only officer's wife at the
post, and there were not even the colorful guard mounts and
parades to break the deadly monotony. Instead, there was al
ways real danger of marauding Apaches who now and again
swept across the bleak mountains and deserts.

For two and a half years the captain and his wife met the
endless aftd weary routine of this tiny isolated post without
complaint or slackness of duty. It was unquestionably hard on
the health and patience of the Virginia aristocrat who served
with him, but she, too, was of the gallant breed of the old
army.
10

Douglas grew more and more to resemble her in looks and
temperament. Even before the family left Fort Selden, she had
begun to implant in his eager mind the idea that he would
grow up to be a great man. Some day he must be a general as
distinguished as Robert E. Lee.

At the same time his father, poring over his books of eve
nings, quietly began the education of his boys. Along with
the 3 Rs, he instilled in them a stern sense of obligation. They
were always to do what was right and just, and forever their
country was to come first in their hearts.

Life was far from dull for the two brothers. They had
their own little spotted Navajo ponies to ride, and there were
hitch-hikes on the mule-drawn water wagon that made its regu
lar trip to the Rio Grande, a mile and a half from the post.
And there were visiting officers and mounted details from the
cavalry post at Fort Stanton on to the east that guarded the
nearby Mescalero Apache reservation. Toward twilight each
evening the company would go through the ceremony of re
treat and the lowering of the flag, and while the bugle sounded
the two little boys would stand at stiff attention.

And there was the time when the few mules and horses of
the post, lazily loose-herded by a sleepy sentinel, suddenly were
sent into a panic by an object as unaccountable as a gray ghost,
or a mirage moving down from the sandy wastes of the Jornado
del Muerto. By chance the boys were sitting nearby on their
pintos, and they were as flabbergasted as the soldier, rubbing
his eyes and swearing by the Virgin he had had nothing to
drink since last pay day. For there in stately loneliness stood a
shaggy camel. Nine-year-old Arthur recognized it by its un
gainly shape, and the pair galloped to their father's office to
tell him of the visitor.

The captain, knowing his military history, at once rec
ognized the desert phenomenon as a survivor of the herd of
camels that Jefferson Davis, when Secretary of War, had
brought from Egypt by chartered ship in 1855. They were to
serve as pack animals to supply the chain of isolated forts in
this vast desert Indian country, but gradually they strayed
away from army service.

Late in 1886 the welcome orders came to Captain MacAr-

ii

thur that he was to take his K Company to Fort Leavenworth,
the great post on the west bank of the Missouri, 20 miles or
so north of busy, growing Kansas City.

Jt was a new and thrilling world the 6 1/£ -year-old Douglas
now entered. Here was a regular school in which he was regis
tered as a second-grade pupil So conscientious had been the
home tutoring by his father that the older brother Arthur, just
turned 10, had no trouble enrolling in the sixth grade.

It was wonderful for the boys to have playmates their own
age and to learn games and make friends. And there was an
endless flow of excitement in the sprawling post itself. Douglas
never tired of watching the mounted troops drill and the artil
lery battery fire its practice rounds. Then there were the
formal afternoon parades when the colonel and his staff sat
their fine horses and saluted as the mounted men and the long-
barrelled guns and caissons rolled by, and the foot com
panies wheeled into company front.

The father's once bright hopes for high rank were slowly
turning into grave doubts. He was definitely and irreparably
behind the Civil War promotion hiimp. Yet despite these years
of discouragement and partial frustration, he never ceased his
study and quiet preparation.

When he found out that there was to be a vacant majority in
the Adjutant General's department, he asked several of his old
army friends for letters of recommendation. A typical reply was
the one written to the Adjutant General by Brevet Major Gen
eral Alexander McDowell McCook, head of the Cavalry and
Infantry school and post commander at Leavenworth:

He is beyond question the most distinguished Captain in the
army of the U. S. for gallantry and good conduct in war. He is a
student, a master of his profession, has legal ability, which fits
him for the position he seeks, is exceptional in habit, temperate
at all times, yet modest withal.

That summer of 1889 his appointment as a major arrived,
and he was ordered to report for duty in the Adjutant General's
office in Washington. He had by now been a captain almost 23
years.

In Washington the newly promoted major missed the busy
12

routine of a company command, and Douglas and his older
brother found no substitute for the color and excitement of Fort
Leavenworth or even for the tiny post on the far-away Rio
Grande. But there was the exciting competition of school, and
much talk soon began of young Arthur's hope to get an ap
pointment to West Point. The father pulled every string he
knew, but in the end he had to compromise on an appointment
to Annapolis for his elder son.

Douglas now spent many happy hours with his grandfather,
the retired judge, Arthur MacArthur, Sr., a gentle old man
with wise, kindly eyes. He had first seen the light of day in Glas
gow on the ^6th of January, 1815, 65 years to the day before
the birthday of his grandson, Douglas. The Scots boy with his
sturdy, widowed mother had voyaged to Boston on one of the
first steam packets. He was graduated in law by the time he
was 25, and he hung out his shingle in Springfield, Massachu
setts.

Shortly afterward he was made judge advocate of the West
ern Military District of Massachusetts, and married Aurelia
Belcher. A son named Arthur, Jr., born on June 2, 1845, was
four years old when the family left for the booming western
city of Milwaukee.

Four years later the energetic young lawyer was elected lieu
tenant governor of Wisconsin and almost immediately found
himself in a dangerous and complicated political fight. In order
to avert bloodshed he retired as acting governor after the State
Supreme Court had debarred the incumbent. As a result of
his cool-headed action in stepping aside and protecting the
good name of Wisconsin, he gained many admirers. When his
term as lieutenant governor ended, he was made judge of the
Second Judicial Circuit. In 1870 President Grant appointed
him a justice of the United States Court of the District of Co
lumbia, and he served on the high bench for 18 years. He
had only recently retired from the federal bench in 1889 when
his army officer son, Arthur, Jr., and his family settled down in
the capital for a tour of duty. In September 1893, about the
time his eldest soldier-son and namesake was assigned as assist
ant adjutant general to the Department of Texas at Fort Sam
Houston in San Antonio, the Judge journeyed to Atlantic

13

City for a few days by the sea. He died there in the midst of his
little holiday.

Douglas was lacking three months of 14 when the three Mac-
Arthurs detrained at San Antonio. The new West Texas Mili
tary Academy had just commenced its first year, and he was
immediately enrolled there. It meant much to the boy to be
back again where there were troops and the colorful trappings
of army life. Fort Sam was one of the most important posts of
the entire Army at this time, and by a big margin it had the
largest garrison of any military reservation the boy had known.

There were pleasant quarters for the major and a maid for
his wife, and life was good. Yet somehow the MacArthurs
seemed to live a quieter life than most of the other officer fami
lies. With them there was no constant exchange of calls and teas
and dinner parties. Of evenings the major, now approaching
his 505, continued his endless studies.

An interesting sidelight on this extraordinary man is found
in his efficiency report dated "Adjutant General's Office,
Washington, May i, 1890." In the section under the heading
Remarks is a report of his personal qualifications written out
by Major Mac Arthur himself, in answer to a request by the De
partment. It read:

Investigations in Political Economy pursued for many years,
through writings of modern economists including Adam Smith,
Thomas Robert Malthus, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill,
Carey, Bagehot, Leslie, Jevons and many other standard writers.

Special inquiry made into the colonial and revolutionary period
of American history, the formation and adoption of the present
Constitution, and the subsequent Constitutional development of
the Republic; together with a comparison of the American and
English constitutions.

Also quite an extensive examination into the civilization and
institutions of China.

From his first year at the little military school, young Doug
las, too, proved his flair for scholarship and for general
intellectual attainment. When he graduated in 1897 as valedic-
14

torian, his 4-year average was 97.33. He had already learned
the art of concentration, and it was clear that he had an un
usually fine mind.

He was not a rugged, closely knit youth, but in his slender
body was the spirit that his father had possessed at this age on
his first battlefield. Fifty-five years after Douglas graduated, a
classmate, Garahl Walker, wrote out these few words of remi
niscence:

I thought he was too light for the football team; however,
they took him and made him quarterback which did not require
so much weight but brains and nerve. He held the job down.
The scrimmages were hard on him. You could see his lips turn
blue but he would get up and fight it again. I know all the boys
believed in him and I wish they were living to see the fight he is
making now.

Certainly he had perfect physical coordination and always a
determined will to win. He played shortstop on the baseball
team and developed into a star.

During his four years at the Academy Douglas was a day
student. A school rule restricted the appointment of the various
cadet officers to boys who were regular boarders, and he had to
be satisfied with the rank of first sergeant of A Company,
but this did not keep him from organizing and training the
prize-winning drill squad.

As far back as he could remember, his father had expounded
to him the glories of West Point and had gone about the task
of lining up an appointment. Time and again the major
brought to his home some recently graduated young shavetail
to tell his son of the customs and regulations of the Academy,
the type of entrance examinations and the courses of study.
Major Mac Arthur still looked to his home town of Milwaukee
and the Congressman there to give his son the golden chance
at an appointment.

Douglas was ready now for the great test. He was 171/2 and
physically developed and mentally mature. His character was
set. He was reserved and studious. He had learned to keep his
eye on the ball. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and
where he wanted to go. West Point was the immediate goal.

15

First of all he must get an appointment, but there seemed to
be no opening in sight. Finally a note came from Congressman
Theobald Otjen, of Milwaukee, explaining that he would
hold a competitive examination for a West Point candidate and
alternate in the late spring of 1898. He would be glad to have
the son of his old friend enter the competition.

In January 1897 Major MacArthur had been advanced from
assistant adjutant general to adjutant general of the Department
of Texas. In September he was promoted to lieutenant colonel,
and the following month he was assigned to the Department of
the Dakotas at St. Paul.

In order to forestall any question about the correctness of
Douglas entering the competitive examination for the West
Point appointment, it was decided that he and his mother
would establish their residence in Milwaukee while the father
proceeded alone to his new post in St. Paul. So for more than
a year Mrs. MacArthur and Douglas occupied comfortable
quarters in the old Plankinton House, and he studied inten
sively for the tests.

On a February day in 1898 the country was shaken with the
report of the blowing up of the battleship Maine in Havana
harbor, and on April 7 war was declared.

Lt. Colonel Arthur MacArthur lost no time in getting in
touch with his friend Major General Henry Clark Corbin, Ad
jutant General of the U. S. Army. He was first assigned to
Tampa and then to Chickamauga Park as adjutant general of
the grd Army Corps. On June i, 1898, the day before he was
53, the hoped-for telegram arrived that announced his appoint
ment as brigadier general of volunteers:

YdU HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED AND COMMISSION SIGNED BY PRESIDENT
SECRETARY WAR DIRECTS YOU REPORT GENERAL MERRITT SAN FRAN
CISCO FOR DUTY WITH EXPEDITION FOR PHILIPPINES.

H. C. CORBIN,
ADJUTANT GENERAL

The new brigadier general immediately wired the news to
his wife in Milwaukee, but her pride and happiness over his
star was dimmed by her fears that he might not be able to
withstand the rigors of a tropical campaign.
16

Four days after the telegram arrived, Douglas, now 18, be
gan to take the competitive examination for the appointment
to West Point. When the marks were announced he led off with
an average of 93.3%, and his nearest competitor rated 77.9.

But despite the unusually high scholastic marks he made in
the competitive examination, his actual entrance into the Mil
itary Academy was postponed until June 1899, when his pred
ecessor graduated. He decided to take special instruction un
der a Professor McLenegan, principal of the West End High
School. For some months he took courses in chemistry, physics
and other studies that required laboratory equipment. Outside
the school rooms he continued to study advanced algebra,
English and history.

On July 31, 1898, his father arrived in the Philippines with
4,700 men of the Third Expedition. In August General
Merritt ordered the city surrounded and the Spanish garrison
attacked. The underfed, underpaid and neglected Spanish
troops put up only a token defense, and with a small loss of life
the Americans took over Manila. To the new brigadier general
the victory brought the rank of major general of volunteers.

Now came reports that trouble was brewing between the
Americans and General Emilio Aguinaldo's native troops, who
claimed that they had won their national independence, and
that the new white conquerors should turn over to them their
Pearl of the Orient.

On the morning of February 5, 1899, cable dispatches re
ported that fighting had broken out on the northern edge of
Manila, and MacArthur's army division was advancing to the
northward. His six volunteer regiments drawn from the farms
and ranches and small towns west of the Mississippi responded
gallantly to his spirited leadership.

Among the officers in his division there were three who es
pecially won his friendship and admiration. Of these, two were
from the Regular Army: Captain J. Franklin Bell, his roving
scout, and Captain Peyton C. March, his own senior aide. The
third officer was a stubby, picturesque fighting man, Frederick
Funston, colonel of the gist Kansas Volunteers. All three were
to profit by their services under the generous MacArthur.
Within the year Bell would rise from a captain in the regu-

17

lars to a brigadier general of volunteers; March from a captain
to a full colonel of volunteers; and Funston, trained in the hard
school of the Cuban insurrection, from the colonel of the soth
Kansas to a brigadier general of volunteers. There was another
young officer who had caught MacArthur's eye — a dashing lieu
tenant of the Signal Corps, a Milwaukee lad named Billy
Mitchell, son of the Wisconsin Senator who had served beside
Arthur MacArthur in the 24th Wisconsin.

The hard-fighting soldier was overjoyed at the prospect of
his youngest son entering West Point in June 1899. "He
told me that he started Douglas towards West Point the day he
was born," General Peyton C. March, Chief of Staff during
World War I, recalled five decades after Douglas entered the
Academy.

Late in May 1899, as Douglas and his mother journeyed
eastward to West Point, they read newspaper dispatches of the
severe fighting going on at that moment north of Manila. Gen
eral MacArthur had suddenly emerged as one of the heroes of
this war.

Strange and unaccountable consequences, however, were to
come from this well-deserved publicity.

2
THE LONG GRAY LINE

Douglas had no trouble passing the West Point entrance ex
aminations. On his physical report was written Normal.

His height was marked down as 5 ft., io%0 in- He weighed
133 pounds, and he was 19 years and 4 months old. The report
bore the date of June 3, 1899.

Soon after his entrance his mother embarked on the some
what unusual procedure of settling at the old West Point Hotel
18

toward the north end of the Military Reservation and off limits
to the cadets. Until two years later, when her husband re
turned from his three-year tour in the Philippines, she spent
much of her time there.

At this particular period physical hazing, "exercising," as it
was called in the cadet vernacular, was probably about as severe
as ever in the long history of the Academy. On July i, 1899, the
members of MacArthur's plebe class finished with "beast" bar
racks and their initial breaking-in by the lordly first class
men or seniors. They were in summer camp under the mercies
of the yearlings or sophomores, who had recently completed
their own plebe year and been "recognized." Only the members
of the yearling class were permitted by custom to indulge
themselves in exercising the new cadets.

At the time, the newspapers were filled with cables regarding
the Luzon fighting and the fine part General MacArthur was
playing in the campaign. To certain of the more perverse year
lings this was excuse enough to turn on his tall, serious son,
who, like all good plebes, was doing his level best to mind his
own business.

His tentmate was Frederick H. Cunningham from Utica,
who had graduated that June from Hamilton College. After
Cunningham had been in camp for six weeks he resigned —
largely in disgust over the hazing he had witnessed — and on
August 20 of this year of 1899 there appeared in the then
powerful New York Sun an unsigned letter to the editor. It
described the various forms of West Point hazing, including
the practice of calling out a plebe and forcing him to fight with
bare fists the best boxer of his weight and height in the year
ling class. The unfair part of the custom was that if the plebe
happened to win, he would have to fight another third class
man, and on and on until he finally was whipped.

Shortly before Cadet Cunningham had resigned, there oc
curred one of a number of futile Academy investigations into
this problem of physical hazing. The superintendent and the
commandant had on a Sunday called the plebe class to a
room in the Academic Building and taken aside and interro
gated several of the cadets who were under suspicion of having
been badly hazed. MacArthur was one of those who were ques-

tioned. He refused to divulge the names of any of the yearlings
who had exercised him.

With the cadets back in barracks in the fall and the aca
demic year begun, the serious exercising was ended, and the
Academy resumed the even tenor of its isolated ways. Appar
ently the hazing episodes of this particular summer of 1899 had
been forgotten. It was not until a year later that a storm of
violent public protest and censure hit West Point, mostly cen
tering on indignities practiced on certain members of the class
preceding MacArthur's.

In this plebe class of 1898 was an unfortunate boy, Oscar
Lyle Booz from Bristol, Pa. Young Booz apparently was gen
erally disliked by the upperclassmen, and life was made un
pleasant for him. It was probably true that the persistent
hazing he received and the calling-out fights he experienced
were reflected in his poor scholarship and his being dismissed
in the first-term examinations.

Almost two years later the young man died of tuberculosis
at his home in eastern Pennsylvania. The Congressman from
his district rose in the Lower House and bitterly charged that
West Point hazing was the cause of his death.

Douglas was a third classman, or yearling, that fall of 1900,
when this scandal which had occurred two years previously was
played up in the metropolitian papers. Already Douglas had
made his mark at the Point, standing No. i in his class
and showing the superiority and leadership that was to mark
his half century of soldiering.

On December 11, 1900, President McKinley ordered a spe
cial court of inquiry to convene at once at West Point, "to in
vestigate the alleged treatment of former Cadet Oscar L. Booz"
and "the extent to which new cadets are now subject to such
treatment."

The preliminary days of the hearing were almost exclusively
concerned with the Booz matter that had occurred in the sum
mer of 1898, the year before MacArthur's class entered. But
before long the testimony switched to more recent episodes,
and soon the hazing of young MacArthur became one of the
principal matters of investigation.

On January 18 his case was taken up in great detail. His
20

answers to the questions were shrewd and carefully worded.
It was evident from the start that he was determined not to
involve any upperclassman still in the Academy, and to mini
mize the incident in every way possible, thus protecting the
good name of West Point at any cost save that of giving false
testimony. After he was sworn by the Chairman of the Congres
sional Committee, the questions and answers began:

Q Mr. MacArthur, we have received a great deal of evidence that
you were severely hazed. The committee is desirous of having
you tell your own story in your own way, giving to us the names
of the cadets by whom you were hazed, the date, as near as you
can, the time, the place, and the physical effect on you personally
of the hazing at that time.

A I cannot tell exactly the time; it was after I had been a plebe
about a month, I should say.

Q And the year, please?

A 1899. The hazing I underwent I have seen something about; I
have heard accounts of it in the newspapers, and elsewhere, and,
like all such matters that start out as a comparatively small thing,
it has grown to very large proportions. The hazing that I under
went was in no way more severe or more calculated to place me in
a serious physical condition than has ordinarily taken place. I was
not in any physical condition that would tend to injure me at all.
I have heard it stated, in fact I have seen it in the newspapers, that
I was at one time hazed until I suffered severe convulsions. No
such affair took place. I was hazed at the time in question until
I was quite tired; I might say more than that. As far as my phys
ical muscles were concerned I did not have complete control of
them, but as far as being in convulsions, or in any way delirious,
or anything of that kind, or out of my head, I most emphatically
deny it. ... I was not obliged to attend hospital for any cause
during plebe camp. On the night in question I think I was suf
fering with a case of exaggerated cramps. That is the only thing
I could call it. The place of exercising was over in camp, in one
of the "A" company tents. I did not exercise, I do not think,
longer than men frequently have and suffer no consequences at
all. I was not in a condition of nausea that would cause any bad
effects. . . .

Q What did your exercising consist of?

A It consisted of eagling. (Continued squatting to the heels, and
then rising, with the arms fully outstretched.)

21

Q How many, please?

A I don't know; I would say, at a rough estimate— well, I could not

even make a rough estimate. I did not keep track.
Q Have you any recollection?
A Eagling was interspersed with other exercising; I would do one

and then the other.
Q How many, should you say, in all?
A I should say, perhaps, 250 would be a good estimate.
Q And what else, please?
A Hanging from a stretcher. (Hanging by the hands from a tent

pole.)

Q How long did you have to hang from a stretcher?

A I should say two minutes at a time.

Q In all, how many minutes?

A I don't know. The whole performance, I should say, took an hour,
and was about equally divided between the different exercises.

Q What were the others?

A Eagling, hanging from stretcher, what is known as dipping, and
I think that was all. . . . (Dipping consisted in lying face down
on the floor, and then pumping up and down with the arms.)

Q You say you were suffering from cramps at the time you exer
cised?

A Afterwards.

Interminably the questioning went on. The 2O-year-old boy
was pitted against distinguished and experienced probers, but
he continued to shield the cadets still in school who might
have taken part in his hazing. Nor would he admit until driven
to a corner that he suffered from anything more than cramps,
and that the word "convulsions" was the proper one to de
scribe his own condition when he finally returned to his tent.
But he could not dodge some of the expertly framed ques
tions.

Q Did you consider it cruel at that time?

A I would like to have you define cruel?

Q All right, sir* Disposed to inflict suffering; indifference in the

presence of suffering; hard-hearted; inflicting pain mentally or

physically; causing suffering.
A I should say perhaps it was cruel, then.
Q You have qualified your answer. Was it or was it not cruel?
A Yes, sir.
22

Q And you did not expect it was part of the essential education of

an officer to be subjected to such cruelty?
A I do not think it is essential; no, sir. . . .
Q And you believe that an Army officer, or a man who may become

an officer of the United States Army should not treat one of his

fellow-officers, or some one who is going to be a fellow-officer, in

that cruel manner?
A I should say not; no, sir.

A week later in the final testimony taken by the court of
inquiry in Chicago, the lid was blown off the entire MacArthur
episode by his former tentmate, Cunningham, the plebe who
had resigned from the Academy after being there less than
two months, although he had never once been exercised. His
testimony was from the beginning pointed toward the Mac-
Arthur hazing.

Q Do you remember an occasion when MacArthur had been in a
tent being exercised and on returning to your tent was overcome?

A I do.

Q What time in the evening was it?

A We returned from mess and I went to the sink; I knew that he
had been summoned to report to some tent on the company street
— Company A. When I returned from the sink he was gone; it
was probably about half past 7 or 8 o'clock.

Q And when did you see him?

A I saw him reel into the tent about an hour later.

Q Then what took place?

A I got up and caught him as he fell.

Q And what did you do to him?

A I laid him gently on the floor of the tent.

Q In what condition was he then?

A He was lucid.

Q Was he in violent convulsions?

A He classified them as cramps.

Q I am asking you to tell what you thought.

A I think if you saw him in the same condition on the street you
would call them convulsions.

Q Was his body writhing?

A Yes, sir; he showed the most activity, however, in his limbs.

Q To what extent were his limbs in motion?

23

A To such an extent I had to hold them to keep them still, and
finally he asked me to throw a blanket under them in order that
the company officers could not hear his feet striking the floor. He
had no control over them.

Q Did you put a blanket under them?

A I did.

Q Was there anything put in his mouth?

A There was nothing.

Q Did he ask for anything to put in his mouth?

A He suggested that if he cried out, to prevent his cries being heard,
that we put a blanket in his mouth. There was no suggestion of
cotton at all.

Q Was there anybody else in the tent besides yourself and Mac-
Arthur?

A I cannot distinctly remember now; I am not sure; but I think
Smith, M., was on guard that night; I am not sure, but I know
as soon as MacArthur returned his inquisitors came around back
of the tent and were much concerned over what they had done.

Q What did they do?

A As near as I can remember they did almost everything in the
exercising line.

Q I mean, what did they do back of the tent?

A I believe Barry (who was the yearling who had done most of the
hazing and was later sent home) ordered someone — a fourth-class
man —

Q Do you mean Barry?

A Yes, sir, Barry. He ordered someone to go to the tank and get
water for him, and when it was brought he used it so far as he
could bathing his head.

Q Do you remember his condition in the morning?

A He got up feeling very — well, he felt, to use a slang expression,
very "all in."

Q What is the meaning of that?

A He did not feel like doing anything. He was urged by some —
I do not know the names of them — to go on sick report, but he
would not do it.

Q He turned out for drill and other duties as if nothing had hap
pened, did he not?

A Yes, sir. . . .

Q You think that MacArthur was let alone after that?

A Yes; I know he was, because I heard — I do not know who it was
told me. but I heard it — the next morning that by his plucky

24

work the night before in the soiree that he had got a bootlic

on the whole corps.
Q Do you know who it was?
A I am under the impression it was Barry.
Q The exerciser?
A Yes; he came around with the statement that he was making n

apologies or did not apologize for things of that sort, and the

he followed it with that remark.
Q Is it fair to say that they indicated a deep concern over the sever

hazing that MacArthur had had the night before?
A It would indicate a slight worry on the part of those who had ii

dulged in it.
Q What was meant by bootlick; you said that Barry had told Ma<

Arthur that he had received a bootlick from the whole corps
A That he had got a bootlick on the whole corps.
Q What did that mean?
A It means admiration for his plucky resistance of the night befoi

and that they were proud of him, and they would practically giv

him the glad hand after that, and I believe that the effect of i

after that was that he was not hazed.

Q You said physically MacArthur was a pretty good man?
A Yes, sir.

Q He is not what you would term an athletic man, physically, is he
A He is tall; his muscles are long, not bunchy; he would make

good baseball player, and he is a good boxer.
Q If he was a good boxer and athlete why didn't he resist thi

brutal hazing, and fight? He understood, did he not, that this ws

his alternative? Can you imagine why?
A No; save that he did not want to; and then, too, I believe th

fact that his mother was at the post led him to put up with mor

than he otherwise would have done.
Q Now what offense against the upper class code had MacArthu

committed the first time that you say he was hazed?
A MacArthur's real offense was that he was the son of Generz

MacArthur.

Q That was a continuous offense, then?
A Yes; he didn't get over that.

Q Do you know of any charge they made against him?
A Yes, they said he did not brace. MacArthur always walked ere(

and was not slouchy — he could not walk slouchy if he trie<
Q Was MacArthur the sort of man who was vain of his ancestrj
A No, sir; there was not a finer fellow in the class.

It was clear that MacArthur had taken the worst they could
give him, including the terrible sweat bath; that he never gave
up or tried to dead beat; that he had protected the upperclass-
men still in the Academy who might have been involved, and
used only the names of three yearling cadets who had been dis
charged.

Out of it all was to come a calm resolve on his part that he
would never haze a fellow cadet, and that if the chance ever
came he would do everything he could to abolish the evil and
stupid custom.

Early in September of his plebe year when the academic year
began and the classes returned from the tent camp to barracks,
MacArthur was approached by a first classman named Hyde
and asked if he would room with him.

It was a most unusual proposition, and Douglas must have
been a little flattered by the invitation from an ordinarily inac
cessible first classman, whom he was not supposed even to
address. Living West Pointers of the time can remember no
similar case. It was to work out all to the good for the plebe.
Regulations permitted a first classman's lights to be on until
ii o'clock, instead of the usual "Lights Out" one hour earlier.
This extra study period was well used by Douglas.

Each evening after supper, weather permitting, Douglas in
variably walked for a half-hour with his mother. That she
spent most of her time during this two-year period at the old
Carney Hotel on the post caused no particular comment. Later
the Corps would chuckle over the assumed (but highly exag
gerated) rivalry that supposedly existed between Mrs. Arthur
MacArthur and Mrs. Frederick Dent Grant, daughter-in-law of
General U. S. Grant, over the scholastic and military competi
tion of their sons.

After the graduation parade in June 1900, the remaining
three classes gathered to hear the reading of the names of the
cadet officers and non-coms appointed for the summer camp.
Of the new yearling class Grant's name was read first in the list
of temporary corporals with MacArthur's name second; later, at
26

the end of the summer camp when the permanent appoint
ments were made for the scholastic year, the order was re
versed, and Douglas became senior corporal. It was the highest
cadet rank he could attain as a third classman.

When the scholastic standings for the first year were posted
young MacArthur stood No. i in the order of merit for his
class. Grant was second. He had beaten MacArthur only in
French.

Early in the summer camp the yearling corporal caught
the eye of the tactical officer of A Company, Captain Edmund
M. Blake, Field Artillery, who was standing with Cadet Cap
tain Charles Burnett, of A, watching Corporal MacArthur drill
a squad of awkward plebes. Finally Blake turned to the cadet
captain and said, "There's the finest drill master I have ever
seen."

West Point at this time was a completely isolated and self-
contained institution. Cadets were absorbed with their own
problems and activities. But it was a little different with Mac-
Arthur. The presence of his mother during his first two years
there not only furnished him with a terrific stimulant and
driving power but kept him in touch with the outside world.

In the summer of 1900 he and his mother were thrilled over
the announcement that the General had been appointed the
first military governor of the Philippines. Heavy criticism had
been brewing throughout the United States over the failure to
end the bitter Philippine struggle for independence, and the
McKinley administration in Washington was deeply worried.
It was thought that the appointment of the popular general
would go far to quiet suspicion at home.

A few months after the MacArthur appointment the Second
Philippine Commission under the chairmanship of Judge Wil
liam Howard Taft arrived in Manila. Obviously Taft had been
sent out by the McKinley Republican administration to push
rapidly toward civil government and conciliation at any cost;
General MacArthur, however, believed that with the revolt still
active and dangerous the time was not ripe for any sentimental
experiments in self-rule, no matter how much the Adminis
tration back home wanted the fighting to stop.

He had already taken a number of broad and liberal steps

27

toward the advancement of the Filipinos to ultimate citizen
ship and self-government. He had instituted the fundamental
right of habeas corpus. He had assigned army officers to build
roads, hospitals and schools, and some of his people were acting
as school teachers. He was a just and humane man. But his be
lief that more time was needed before the power of the govern
ing military should be reduced was in direct opposition to the
theories and political necessities of Judge Taft.

Shortly after the Treaty of Paris had legally transferred the
Philippines to the United States, President McKinley found to
his surprise that a first-class rebellion was included in the pur
chase price of $15,000,000. When the subsequent violent out
break came, the President and his advisors figured that it could
be put down in six months with 30,000 men. But this became
a year and 65,000 men, and the guerilla fighting was harsh and
continued. And now into the alarming situation was injected
the genial Taft, with orders from Washington that for political
reasons he must get the little war off the front pages at the
earliest possible moment.

It was decided that on July 4, 1901, General MacArthur
would turn over complete authority to the new civil govern
ment, to be headed by Judge Taft. Shortly before this date an
incident occurred which played directly into Taft's hands
and fortunately helped to end the bitter, costly struggle. It still
constitutes one of the most fabulous chapters in the whole his
tory of the United States Army — the capture of the insurgent
leader, General Aguinaldo, by Brigadier General Funston,
U. S, Volunteers, and a group of four U. S. Army officers, with
a company of loyal Macabebe Scouts. The Scouts were posing
as insurrectos bringing the captured American officers to Agui-
naldo's headquarters, deep in the inaccessible mountains of Isa-
bela Province. At the moment that the Macabebes were being
received they overpowered the little Filipino garrison guarding
Aguinaldo. MacArthur had had an active part in planning and
authorizing the bold enterprise, and when it had been success
fully concluded by seizing the Filipino leader, he saw to it that
the volunteer officer, Fred Funston, was promoted to be a
brigadier general in the Regular Army.

Later Funston was to name his only son after his benefactor.
28

Eventually he was to incorporate his experiences in both the
Cuban and Philippine insurrections into a fascinating book,
Memories of Two Wars. Its dedication bore the words:

To the Memory of

ARTHUR MACARTHUR FUNSTON

the little boy who in happy days gone by

often sat on my knees and, open-eyed and

wondering, listened to the story of the

cruise of the Dauntless and to accounts of

midnight rides in the Philippines; but who

now sleeps forever in the national cemetery

of the Presidio of San Francisco, under the

shadow of the flag his childish heart so loved.

At dawn one morning the captured Aguinaldo was trans
ferred from the little American gunboat Vicksburg to a launch
and taken to General MacArthur's quarters at Malacanan Pal
ace on the Pasig river in Manila. He was received with extreme
kindness and generosity. So touched was the Filipino leader
that he soon voluntarily issued a proclamation advising the Fil
ipinos to give up their struggle and accept the sovereignty of
the United States. The U. S. General's handling of the entire
delicate situation was to give to the name MacArthur a special
place in the hearts of millions of Filipinos.

One incident shortly after Aguinaldo's proclamation advising
his followers to lay down their arms was to have an odd bear
ing on affairs that occurred many years later. Hiding in the
hills of Bataan, along with a few hundred ragged, sick and
hungry insurrectos under General Mascardo, was a ig-year-old
major of the Philippine Army named Manuel Quez6n. Racked
by fever and almost totally incapacitated, he gave himself up to
an American lieutenant stationed in the little port of Mariveles
on Bataan, who arranged for him to cross the Bay to Manila.

Soon he was shown into the office of the military governor
and through the interpreter, Fred Fisher, he explained to Gen
eral MacArthur that he had been ordered to find out if Agui
naldo had really surrendered. General MacArthur quietly
waved him to a room across the hall, and Quez6n entered to
find himself alone with his hero, General Aguinaldo.

The meeting not only with his beloved chieftain but with

29

the kindly General MacArthur had a profound effect on young
Major Quezdn. Many years later it was to reflect directly on his
relation with General Douglas MacArthur and in his intense
and unswerving loyalty to the United States government.

During that summer of 1901 Douglas spent his first and only
West Point furlough with his mother in Milwaukee. There his
father hurriedly joined them after his arrival in San Francisco.
Three years had passed since the family had been together.

Douglas stood No. i in scholarship at the end of his yearling
year and again was appointed the ranking cadet of his class —
senior first sergeant of A Company.

As a proud junior or second classman, he could also wear the
big A that he had won in baseball. The class of 1901 had grad
uated in February, and Stephen Abbot, of the class of 1902,
was chosen captain of the ball team. Abbot was re-elected cap
tain the following year, and Douglas played on both his teams.

"He was a heady ballplayer, and we used him as a fielder/'
Abbot declared a half century later. "He was far from bril
liant, but somehow he could manage to get on first. He'd outfox
the pitcher, draw a base on balls or get a single or outrun a
bunt — and there he'd be on first."

In 1902 Douglas was granted a special leave, and in his
full-dress uniform with his shining gold chevrons of first cap
tain, he stood as best man for his older brother, Arthur, Jr.
The wedding took place at Newport News, Virginia, and it was
the first time in several years that the four MacArthurs had
been together. The bride of the young naval officer was Mary
McCulla, daughter of a famous admiral who had served in Phil
ippine waters the time General Arthur MacArthur had been
there. She was to prove a valiant and devoted champion of the
army family, and she and Douglas were to survive them all.
During periods totalling ten years, Mrs. MacArthur lived
with her, and no daughter could have been kindlier or more
loyal than this gentle navy girl.

Even in this period, while Douglas was still in West Point, it
was evident that he greatly resembled his mother not only in
30

looks but in temperament. He shared with her a rare quality
that can only be described as intuition. Arthur, Jr., on the
other hand, was far more like his father. He had his father's
careful and methodical mind, and he reached his conclusions
by cautious analysis and study.

Douglas, however, seemed to have so trained and organized
his mental processes that in approaching a problem he could
leap across space and arrive at a conclusion that was often un
canny in its accuracy. He could then leisurely marshal his facts
and justify his conclusion in reverse. His swift and flashing
decisions were apparently the composite result of a logical
mind, an uncanny sense of psychological awareness and
an equally important code of moral values. These qualities
were his in part from a fine inheritance of body and mind and
from his long training by his parents in correct values of moral
integrity. To these he added the practice of rigid self-disci
pline.

Many years later a senior officer, Lt. General Robert C. Rich
ardson, who had served three years with him as a fellow cadet,
described in a few words the MacArthur of West Point days:
"He had style. There was never another cadet quite like him."

A half-century after their graduation, MacArthur's yearling
roommate, Colonel George Cocheu, was asked what sort of a
person Douglas was as a cadet. "Think of the sort of man he is
today/' he replied, "and you have exactly the picture of what
he was when he graduated in 1903."

During a part of his second year his eyes bothered him, and
while he was in the hospital his name was included in a list of
"goats'1 who must take a special examination in mathematics.
Indignantly he put on his dress uniform and announced to his
roommate that unless his name was removed from the obnox
ious list he would immediately resign. He would go directly to
the home of the professor who was head of the department,
even though his house was out of bounds for cadets and the
act might lose him his chevrons as senior captain.

"Think what your father would say if you resigned so soon be
fore graduation," his roommate George Cocheu argued.

"My father will agree that I did the right thing/' Douglas

insisted.

31

The professor personally admitted him. Douglas saluted and
then briefly said that his instructor had no right to put his
name on the ''goat" list, and that if it were not withdrawn before
classes opened the next morning, he would submit his resigna
tion from West Point. He pointed out that his standing was so
high that he could be marked as failing completely in the
weekly test without his rating for the year being affected. The
professor answered that he was not acquainted with the case,
but he would look into it.

Before classes were called that next morning, a messenger
came with the report that Mac Arthur's name had been
removed from the "goat" sheet. It might seem a trifling matter,
but to young MacArthur it was of the essence of personal honor.
He had worked hard for almost four years to keep his superior
scholastic record absolutely clean, and rather than have it un
justly marred by a mark of failure at the end, he was pre
pared to resign.

The previous June, when the graduation exercises of the class
of 1902 were over, the list of new cadet appointments was
read off. There was not the slightest surprise when Douglas
MacArthur's name was called out as first captain. It was the
supreme military honor that West Point could give him.

It had come to Robert E. Lee, far back in 1828: he stood
second in scholarship in the little class of 36 that graduated in
1829. Fifty-six years later a tall, square-shouldered cadet from
Missouri named John J. Pershing heard his name called out as
first captain for the coming year of 1885: his scholarship stand
ing was 29 in a class of 76. Three years after the high honor
touched Douglas MacArthur, a slender cadet named Jonathan
Wainwright was singled out to lead the Corps: he stood 24 in
a class of 77. Both Pershing and Wainwright were to play im
portant parts in MacArthur's future.

He had had no serious competitor in the military side, but
in the final scholastic listing for his third year he lost his lead
to Cadets Fiske and Leeds; he stood third, with his rival U. S.
Grant III two slots below. That fall, as a first classman, he took
time out to manage the football team, but when spring came
he did not go out for baseball. He had satisfied his need to
32

win his A, and the fight to recapture first place in scholarship
called for his best efforts.

He had never been the slightest degree interested in being
rated the most popular cadet, but he was easily the outstand
ing one. Only a few times in its more than 150 years of his
tory, has the first captain stood No. i in scholarship. Douglas
was to have this honor and the additional one of having made
the highest marks registered in a quarter-century. At times
this period of reckoning has been stretched by MacArthur en
thusiasts to cover a century, but the Academy's curriculum has
several times been changed so that accurate comparisons in
grades and standing are impossible.

At the graduation exercises his father and mother were
asked to sit on the platform with other notables, but they chose
to sit to the rear of the graduating class among other parents
and relatives.

When the address was ended, First Captain MacArthur led
the line of 93 graduates from their seats in the front rows.
After he saluted and accepted his diploma, there was an out
burst of applause. He turned quickly from the rostrum and in
stead of returning to his seat he walked straight on to the rear.
He handed the diploma to his father and smiled down at his
mother.

A life-time later he was to put into words what West Point
meant to him: .

Tokyo

15 March 1947

Nearly 48 years have gone since I joined the long grey line.
As an Army "brat" it was the fulfillment of all my boyish dreams.
The world has turned over many times since that day and the
dreams have long vanished with the passing years, but through
the grim murk of it all, the pride and thrill of being a West
Pointer has never dimmed. And as I near the end of the road
what I felt when I was sworn in on The Plain so long ago I can
still say — "that is my greatest honor/'

MacArthur

33

"THE POWER

THAT RULES THE PACIFIC . . /'

There was never the slightest doubt in Douglas* mind but that
he would choose the Engineers.

In those days the ten top-ranking Academy graduates had
the privilege of picking the branch of the service they desired
to enter, and almost automatically they chose the Corps of En
gineers, where promotion was swifter and where there were
many special considerations. The corps elite at this time con
sisted of 153 officers, with a brigadier general in command and
six full colonels occupying the senior posts.

Besides choosing the Engineers it was almost inevitable that
Douglas asked for assignment in the Philippines. Here his fa
ther had won his great fame, and it was the only spot where
there was a chance of taking part in active fighting. There was
bitter guerilla warfare in many parts of the Islands, and in
Mindanao and Jolo the Moros were stubbornly contesting the
American occupation. If a young officer was lucky, he might
still see some real action.

On September ssi, 1903, Douglas joined the 3rd Battalion
of Engineers at San Francisco. Ten days later he sailed on the
transport Sherman for Manila. With him were several of his
classmates, including Second Lieutenant U. S. Grant III and a
detachment of engineer troops. His first detail was with Com
pany M of that outfit, quartered in the Luneta barracks in
Manila.

During the year he spent in the Islands he saw engineer
duty on Leyte, Samar, Panay and Cebu and headed a surveying
crew that ran its traverses in the steaming wooded hills around
34

the port of Mariveles on Bataan peninsula in Luzon. In May
1904 he was ordered before a promotion board in Manila.
His general average of 88.1 more than qualified him, and he
was promoted to first lieutenant. Five months later he boarded
the transport Thomas for San Francisco.

It had been a busy and profitable year for him. The lure of
the Islands had entered his blood, and he had caught the vision
of his father and the little group of able and far-sighted men
both in the army and in the new civil government who had de
termined to build here in the Western Pacific a sturdy out
post of American influence. It would be a living example of
how a rich country of good will could help turn a backward
and impoverished land into a fine and progressive nation that
some day might attain complete independence.

Since Douglas was a boy of 14 in San Antonio his father had
been making clear to him the vast, unfolding picture of the
changing East. He had watched Japan in 1894 start her first
war against decadent China and win (1895) the strategic island
of Formosa. As a cadet at West Point he pondered the signifi
cance of Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door policy of
September 6, 1899, and his subsequent prediction, "As goes
China, so goes the world/' And he had read and digested the
speech of Senator Albert J. Beveridge on January 9, 1900, that
had enunciated the principle, "The power that rules the Pa
cific ... is the power that rules the world."

In February 1904 when Admiral Togo surprised the Rus
sian fleet outside the harbor of Port Arthur, MacArthur had
tried without success to wangle his way to the fighting along
the Yalu river that eventually developed into the great siege of
Port Arthur.

Within three months after he had arrived in San Francisco
and was assigned to the Golden Gate harbor defenses, his fa
ther was ordered to Tokyo as military attach^ to the Ameri
can Legation, and chief military observer with the Japanese
Army in Manchuria. Douglas would have given an arm to go
along.

Actually his father missed all but the shouting, for the Japa
nese entered Mukden on March 10. But he made the most oi
his opportunity to correlate the work of the several American

35

observers present. One of them was a rugged 42-year-old cap
tain of cavalry, John J. Pershing; and another officer was a
wiry, slender field artilleryman, Captain Peyton C. March,
who had been MacArthur's aide in Luzon in the summer of
1899.

General MacArthur's reports were not limited to the narrow
scope of battle tactics or even strategy. He saw the vast changes
that were taking place in the Far East, with Manchuria and Ko
rea as the immediate prizes and all China and the Western Pa
cific as the ultimate goals of Japanese conquest. He was fully
aware that the victory of Japan did not mean the final elim
ination of Russia in the contest for the mastery of China.

His reports were read and pondered in various offices
in Washington, and President Theodore Roosevelt wanted
more and more of such penetrating analyses. So it was that the
elder MacArthur received a unique assignment: to make a
complete study of all the colonial lands of the Far East. His
reply to the singular orders was as follows (the "Second Divi
sion" in later years became G-s> — Intelligence Section):

Yokohama, Japan
October 27, 1905
Chief Second Division^
War Department.

Sir: — In executing the order of the War Department, in respect
to certain instructional journeys to Asia, my present purpose is
to leave Yokohama about October 30, directly for India, stopping
briefly at Hong Kong, Singapore, Rangoon, and reaching Cal
cutta early in December.

In India my itinerary will be North West Frontier at Peshawar
and Quetta, and thence, via Bombay, Hyderabad, Bangalore and
Madras to Colombo — thence returning north by way of Java,
Siam and Indo China. I hope to be in Shanghai about April i,
and thereafter remain in China six weeks or two months . . . '

Before writing this letter, a personal appeal from the Gen
eral to an old War Department friend in Washington had
worked the magic trick, and the ^-year-old Douglas, then
serving in San Francisco, was lifted high into the blue by a
telegram that read:
36

SPECIAL ORDER WAR DEPARTMENT,

NO. 222 WASHINGTON, D. C.

OCT. 3, 1905

FIRST LIEUTENANT DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, CORPS OF ENGINEERS, IS
RELIEVED FROM PRESENT DUTIES, AND WILL PROCEED TO TOKYO, JAPAN,
AND REPORT IN PERSON TO MAJOR GENERAL ARTHUR MACARTHUR,
U.S.A., FOR APPOINTMENT AS AIDE-DE-CAMP ON HIS STAFF.

BY ORDER SECRETARY OF WAR.

J. C. BATES,
MAJOR GENERAL,
ACTING CHIEF OF STAFF

Douglas sailed on October 10, exactly two days before the
formal signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth, which President
Theodore Roosevelt had induced the Russian delegates to ac
cept. To the President and his advisors the Island Kingdom
apparently offered less immediate menace than the awakening
Empire of Russia.

Some dream of ultimate Russian expansion and conquest had
long aroused the concern of British statesmen and pointed
them toward a pro- Japanese policy that in turn was sold to
Washington. There was no underestimating the possible men
ace of Russia in the inner circle of imaginative men around
Theodore Roosevelt. If Russia's march into the heart and
fringes of the Asiatic continent could be stopped by Japan in
Manchuria, then it would be well worth the shady trick of
turning Korea over to Japan as her pay. Japan could block
Russia, but it hardly seemed plausible in 1905 that Japan
would ever stand squarely against the growing power of
America.

Major General Arthur Mac Arthur was one of the few army
officers with the breadth of background and mind capable of
an adequate first-hand survey of the vast and complicated Ori
ent. He possessed the necessary equipment to make a careful
report on its billion restless people, already beginning to
dream of throwing off the domination of European powers. He
had helped the Filipinos take their first faltering steps toward
independence. He had been in close contact with the Japanese
military leaders, and he had caught the true temper of the

37

underlying struggles for Korea and Manchuria and China. He
knew that Russia, so recently driven back across the Amur river
into Siberia, would again enter the rich plains of Manchuria,
and that in the possibly not-too-distant future the battle for
global supremacy might well be fought in this Far Eastern
world.

The nine months used in the great tour, which swung from
Tokyo to the Khyber Pass in the Himalayas and then back
in an arc that touched Java and southeast Asia, was without
question the most important single factor of preparation in
Douglas MacArthur's entire life. Never was Europe or the At
lantic to hold in his eyes the true historic significance or the
sense of destiny that these lands of the Western Pacific and the
Indian Ocean now assumed. The things he saw and learned,
the deep impressions he gained, were to become a part of him,
to color and engage all the days of his life.

Thus at 26 he saw clearly and became thoroughly convinced
that the very existence and future of America were irrevocably
tied up with Asia and its island outposts.

He was not to return to the Western Pacific for 16 years.
But never would he escape from the hold that the world of the
Far East had fastened upon him.

Back in San Francisco in August 1906, he helped his father
with his final reports and then hurried on to Washington and
the Engineer School at Fort Belvoir. During that winter season
he served as a special White House aide to President Theodore
Roosevelt at official functions. But events that were shaping up
around his father deeply disturbed him.

Before Arthur MacArthur had returned from the Far East he
had been made a lieutenant general — the twelfth in the entire
history of the Army — with the provision that the rank was to be
abolished with his own retirement. He was well aware that this
high honor had been given him in place of the post of Chief of
Staff. This coveted promotion had fallen to James Franklin
Bell, who was just under 50, and who had been one of MacAr
thur's finest officers in the Luzon fighting.
38

At the end of January 1907 a wire from the Adjutant Gen
eral was sent to the old soldier, again in command at San
Francisco, stating that the present large geographic army divi
sions would soon be abolished, but that if he so desired, he
might have the Department of the East, with headquarters on
Governor's Island in New York harbor.

The upshot of the matter was a most unusual letter that
General MacArthur addressed to Secretary of War William
Howard Taft. It read in part:

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I have been painfully conscious for some time that my present
assignment is not compatible with the traditions of the Lieuten
ant Generalcy. The further purpose to abolish Divisions, and
thereby reduce me to command of a Department, emphasizes the
incongruity. It, therefore, seems to me, the sooner the depressing
condition is terminated, the better it will be for all the interests
involved. This purpose can be accomplished in two ways, viz:

1. By my retirement from active service.

2. By my assignment to special duty, with station outside
Washington, and not at the Headquarters of a geographical com
mand. . . .

I doubt, Mr. Secretary, if you fully realize the professional
aspect of the decision which now confronts me. The office of
Lieutenant General which I now hold, was originally intended
to subserve only the highest purposes of military expediency.
In consideration of past achievements and of the possibilities
of usefulness in future emergencies, the place has perhaps, at
times, been unduly magnified; but, on the other hand, it is now
so much depressed that in effect it has become merely a title.
By process of current events it has been mediatized, and divested
of prestige, dignity and influence.

I am reasonably concerned in respect of the partial restoration
of the first two of the foregoing attributes; and as such a result
can be accomplished without interfering in any way with the
policy of the Department to have the army represented in Wash
ington by a junior officer, I am decidedly of the opinion that such
a readjustment of the professional status of the Lieutenant Gen
eralcy would be of material advantage to the service.

I would, therefore, be very much obliged if you will give the
matter such consideration as may be possible, and would there-

39

after advise me of your view in the premises as soon as con*
venient.

In the meantime I remain,

Very respectfully,
Arthur MacArthur

Mr. Taft replied promptly that he "would be glad to have a
statement on the project which you offer to submit as a basis of
discussion."

Lt. General MacArthur immediately proposed that he be
ordered to Milwaukee, where he would write his final report
on his visit to Asia. Shortly afterward the delicate and some
what humiliating matter was brought to a close by an order
from J, Franklin Bell, Chief of Staff, directing his old mentor
"to proceed to Milwaukee, Wise., there to perform such duties
as may hereafter be assigned . , . by the War Department/' He
would officially retire June 2, 1909.

Douglas deeply felt the sense of frustration and futility that
he knew was plaguing his father. The only possible contribu
tion he could make was to request assignment to a station close
by so that he could be near him. He was successful, and on
August 10, 1907, he reported to the Engineering Office at Mil
waukee under the command of Major W. V. Judson. He lived
with his father and mother in the comfortable old three-story
mansion on North Marshall Street that his father had rented
when he had first been transferred there,

For some reason, which evidently grew out of a definite
grating of personalities, Douglas did not quite hit it off with
Major Judson. It was natural for the older officer to be
somewhat envious of the younger whose family stood so high
in Milwaukee social circles and in the esteem of local citizens.
The matter came to a head on an official inspection trip to
Manitowoc in northern Wisconsin. When the two men regis
tered at the hotel, the senior officer was assigned a small room,
and Douglas was led to the best room in the hotel.

Major Judson was aghast at the hotel clerk's affront to his
rank and age. He upbraided Douglas and demanded how such
a thing could have happened. The young officer explained that
possibly the name MacArthur carried some special weight in
40

this part of the world. There was heat attached to the discus
sion, and it appears that Douglas made little effort to soothe
the ruffled feathers of the major.

The upshot of the episode was that Douglas shortly asked to
be relieved, and he subsequently was sent to duty at Fort Leav-
enworth. Major Judson is said to have dropped a note
containing derogatory remarks about MacArthur to the officer
commanding the grd Battalion of Engineers there, with the
result that Lieutenant MacArthur was assigned to the worst
company in the battalion. But within three months he had
whipped the company into an outstanding outfit, and had won
the confidence of the commanding officer of the battalion.

In Major Judson's efficiency report, put in after MacArthur
had left Milwaukee, he sharply criticized him for "lacking in
zeal to learn/' When this was brought to MacArthur's atten
tion, he promptly protested and demanded of the commanding
general of the Corps of Engineers a complete appraisal of the
case, and that a report on his zeal and devotion to duty be
made by each of the half-dozen officers under whom he had
served. Most favorable reports quickly followed, and Major
Judson's criticism was soon forgotten.

This was the first time that Douglas MacArthur experienced
the envy and jealousy of older men, but it was to be far from
the last.

In many ways the assignment to Leavenworth was choice. An
ambitious young officer, even if he did not actually attend the
classes, was in an atmosphere of serious military study. If he
chose, he could largely follow the regular courses and lectures
both in the Infantry and Cavalry schools and in the Staff Col
lege.

First Lieutenant George C. Marshall had become an honor
graduate of the School of the Line in June 1907, and the fol
lowing year he had been one of the top graduates of the Staff
College there. He had been retained as an instructor in the
junior school and had been assigned to teach a special course in

41

the Department of Engineering. Marshall, almost a year
younger than MacArthur, had been sent to the Islands as his
first duty after he graduated from the Virginia Military Insti
tute in 1902, and there he had immediately caught the eye
of Major General J. Franklin Bell, at the time commanding
general of the Department of the Philippines. Bell had ma
neuvered the unusual appointment of Marshall to the Infantry
and Cavalry schools, where, although he was by far the junior
member of the class of 1907, he finished as an honor graduate.

Marshall was ambitious, quick-witted and self-assertive,
and he definitely believed in his own future. He had no par
ticular gift for friendship, and his relation with Douglas Mac-
Arthur during the two years they served together in Fort Leav-
enworth was formal and without warmth.

Several unattached young officers of the Corps of Engineers
at Leavenworth at this time secured an apartment in one of
the houses that had been built as double quarters and set up
an engineer mess that was called The Rookery. Douglas lived
in a small two-room suite on the second floor, and saw to it that
the youngest lieutenant present served as mess officer. Alto
gether it was a pleasant and gay little club, with always a young
bachelor or two from either the cavalry or infantry invited in
as a member.

During the years Douglas spent at Leavenworth, dating from
the time he was 28 until he was 32, he appeared as the beau
ideal of a young soldier thirsting for action. Most of his evenings
were spent in quiet study, but on week ends there were parties
on the post, in the city of Leavenworth and in nearby Kansas
City. He drank very little, but now and again he sat in at a
poker game that was fitted for the pocketbooks of young lieu
tenants. More than 40 years later officers would remember him
at the end of a pleasant stag dinner singing his favorite song,
"Old soldiers never die — they just fade away."

During the last two years of his tour of duty an outstanding
young engineer officer, John C. H. Lee, occupied the room ad
joining MacArthur's quarters, and his intimate association with
Douglas left many indelible impressions on the younger man.
Years later when he had won great honor as head of Services of
Supply in the European theatre during World War II and had
42

three stars on his shoulders, General Lee would spin yarns of
the pranks of old Leavenworth days.

One had to do with the officers' ball team on which Douglas
played and which he helped manage, and with the annual visit
of the ball club of the Kansas City Country Club. At the first of
the series of games on the post, the Leavenworth strategy was to
entertain the visitors so lavishly with food and drink at the
luncheon before the game that they were easily outplayed and
roundly beaten.

The following year the Kansas City contingent ate and
drank heartily, but secretly held back from the feast some of
their best players. This time they overwhelmed the Army
team. The score in the series was now i and i.

At the luncheon preceding the third annual game, MacAr-
thur humorously introduced two presentable young men as
recent graduates who had been stars on the West Point team.
It was observed that the pair of young officers had little to say,
and the game had become a whopping victory for the Army
before it was discovered that the alleged young West Pointers
were a pair of Texas bush ringers imported at the cost of a
$20 bill — when $20 was considerable money.

Douglas kept a riding horse and tried his hand on the En
gineers' polo team, which could hardly compete with the ar
dent cavalry players. He was particularly competent in his lec
tures delivered in the latter part of his tour of duty. His real
interest inevitably lay within his own profession.

At dinner one evening in the Rookery mess one of the new
instructors was bewailing the custom of the question-and-
answer period that followed each school lecture.

"I'll tell you how I handle it," Douglas piped up. "At the
end of my first lecture in a new course I announce that now is
the time for the question period. Then I explain that my sol
dier father used to say that when he was at Leavenworth there
were three kinds of students who ask questions. The first group
comprise the lazy students who want the instructor to do their
work for them. The second group consist of the fawning stu
dents who seek to gain the instructor's favor by flattering him.
The third group are the so-and-sos who wished to embarrass
the instructor. Then I add quickly, 'Are there any questions?' "

43

Douglas had been at Leavenworth two years when he re
ported to a promotion board at the Army Building in New
York and on February 27, 1911, was made captain of engi
neers. He was now adjutant of the grd Battalion, and in addi
tion he served as quartermaster and commissary officer, engi
neer officer, and disbursing officer and was in charge of the
engineer depot at Leavenworth. As a sort of extra duty in No
vember 1910 he had been assigned as "member of a Board of
Officers to report on certain changes in the pontoon equipage/'
The last two years of his service at Leavenworth were filled
with odd details that added up to his education as a thoroughly
competent combat engineer officer. For one thing, he spent
several weeks on an official visit to the Panama Canal Zone,
busying himself in the study of that vast engineering project.
There was much social activity around the Panamanian cap
ital city, and a legend persists that he left the heart of at least
one of the young ladies he had been squiring in a very shat
tered condition. He was to remember in particular many eve
nings he spent at the home of Captain Robert E. Wood of
the West Point class of 1900, later head of Sears, Roebuck &
Co. They had known each other at West Point and were to be
firm friends for the rest of their lives.

From March 7 to July 15, 1911, Captain MacArthur served
with the Manoeuvre Division that had been activated in San
Antonio as a result of tense Mexican-American relations along
the border. The next year he was made a regular instructor
in the Department of Engineering at the Fort Leavenworth
Service Schools. It was a step up, but he had had more than
enough of the wind-swept plains of the Kansas post. He had
tried shortly after his arrival for an assignment as an instructor
in the Engineering Department at West Point, but for some
reason he had been blocked by the superintendent, Colonel
Hugh Lenox Scott. To add now to his general discontent, he
was deeply concerned over the declining health of both his
father and mother.

Early in the morning of September 6, 1912, an orderly from
the Officer of the Day's office knocked at the door of his quar-

old Civil War regiment.

As Douglas made his hurried preparations to join his mother
in Milwaukee, he recalled a remark his father had made: "I
have received every honor my country could give me, save that
of dying at the head of her troops/'

He was met at the depot in Milwaukee by Brigadier General
Charles King, a devoted family friend and old comrade-in
arms of General Arthur MacArthur and a military historian
and novelist. That same morning King had written out an offi
cial report of the General's death and dispatched it to the Ad
jutant General in Washington. It read in part:

At ten o'clock on the evening of Thursday, Sept. 5, while
addressing at a banquet the survivors of the 24th Wisconsin, his
old regiment from '62 to '65, Lieut. General MacArthur sud
denly expired.

For over a year the General had suffered from hyper-acidity
of the stomach. Of late his condition had aroused the anxiety
of Mrs. MacArthur and of their neighbor, myself. The day had
been the hottest of the season; the General had taken little nour
ishment for three days previously, and, fearing the result, Mrs.
MacArthur begged him not to go, but aided him to dress when
she found he could not be dissuaded. She was, therefore, meas
urably prepared for the announcement over the telephone that
the General had been taken seriously ill, and came bravely for
ward to meet me when a few minutes later it became my duty to
break the news. She herself asked at once, "Is he dead?" and was
answered simply in the affirmative. For an instant she bowed her
head; then quietly walked to her room with the family physician;
was presently joined there by my wife, and the pastor of the
Emmanuel Church. With her own hand she wrote the dispatches
to her sons, and the newspaper story of her screaming and swoon
ing is absolutely untrue.

On my return from the telegraph office I received a message
from Mrs. MacArthur asking me to take charge of preparation
for the funeral and asking me to call at ten in the morning.

45

It was then that Mrs. MacArthur told me, as I already had
heard from her own lips, that the General desired not to be
buried in his uniform, and added that he had explicitly told
her he wished his funeral to be as simple as it could be made
and utterly devoid of military display. . . .

Only two additional items needed to be added, and they
were included in the subsequent report by General King:
apoplexy was assigned as the official cause of his death; and
the flag of his country was placed upon his casket and buried
with him.

Forty years later a lone figure still lived in Milwaukee who
had witnessed the dramatic scene of the General's passing. He
was Colonel Horace Martin Seaman, who had been colonel of
the 4th Wisconsin Regiment during the Spanish War. On this
tragic evening in 1912 he had been invited to sit at the speak
ers' table as a representative of the Wisconsin National Guard.

Colonel Seaman distinctly recalled how the ninety veterans
had sung their campaign songs and greeted their comrades. Fi
nally the dinner was over, the invocation pronounced and the
speeches started. Then it came the turn of the old soldier who
as a slender youth of 19 had commanded the regiment through
its last year and a half of battle.

"Comrades," the General began slowly, "I am here against
the advice of my physician, but I could not stay away on this
great anniversary of our starting to the war. Little did we
think a half century ago that so many of us would be permitted
to gather in this way/*

He seemed to falter and his face lost its color.

"Comrades/" he gasped, "I cannot proceed — I — /'

He crumpled up on the table in front of him, and the old
men who as youths had followed him up Mission Ridge and
into the fire on a dozen battlefields tenderly watched over
him.

The regimental surgeon, Dr. William J. Cronyn, who had
bound up their wounds in the long ago, hurried forward and
examined the General.

"Comrades, the General is dying/' he said simply.

Someone in the middle of the room began to repeat the
Lord's prayer, and the others followed.
46

Captain Parsons took down the flag that hung behind the
speaker's stand and laid it over the body of the General. Then
the captain himself faltered and Colonel Seaman held him up.
His lips were white and he had difficulty whispering to the
younger man: "I— I can't move. I— I've had a stroke."

Two weeks later Captain Parsons, too, was dead.

The eldest son, Lt. Commander Arthur MacArthur, had sped
to Milwaukee for the funeral and remained with his mother as
long as his leave would permit. Before he returned to his navy
duty, Douglas assured him that, for the time being at least,
he would somehow find a way to be with their mother and to
look after her.

But it proved far more easily said than done. He immedi
ately asked for reassignment, but he was blocked by a red-tape
rule that an officer of the Engineer Corps attached to an army
service school was removed from the jurisdiction of his branch.
Any change in station had to originate with the local officer in
command. In the end the distraught son took his pride in his
hand and wrote straight to the Director of the Army Field En
gineering School at Leavenworth.

His letter asking for immediate transfer because of the seri
ous illness of his mother was so compelling that the command
ing officer of the school wrote Washington that, while he
was loath to lose the services of Captain MacArthur, he would
recommend that the request be granted.

Back down the long list of official stations the document gath
ered its additional endorsements. On November 4 the eighth
and final endorsement was signed by the acting chief of engi
neers, in Washington, D. C. Captain MacArthur was duly
relieved from duty at Fort Leavenworth and assigned to Wash
ington.

A few days later he started with his mother on the
exhausting train trip to that city. For the moment he was pri
marily absorbed with the grim task of helping his mother to
live.

A WILD NIGHT IN VERA CRUZ

Captain MacArthur had been in the capital exactly a month
when he was assigned to temporary duty with the General
Staff. This top group consisted at this time of 38 officers, 10 of
whom were ordinarily on leave or on detached duty. It was the
brains of the Army, when it came to planning wars or deciding
matters of highest importance. Its exact duties were still a bit
nebulous, for the old branches comprising the several services
such as Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery still functioned sepa
rately, each branch zealously guarding its own prerogatives.

The g^-year-old MacArthur immediately caught the eye of
Major General Leonard Wood, who in 1910 had succeeded J.
Franklin Bell as Chief of Staff, MacArthur proved at once that
he was alert, of broad military background and knowledge and
not afraid to present his own ideas. During his years at Leav-
enworth he had assiduously followed the various classes in the
School of the Line and the Staff College, and he had familiar
ized himself with the textbooks and studies used in the several
courses on tactics, strategy and staff organizations. It was almost
as if he had been a continuing student officer at the schools.
He had rubbed minds with the keenest of the instructors, and
he was now fully prepared for larger duties.

That first winter in Washington he and his mother kept
house together in a modest apartment in the Hadleigh at i6th
and U. She began slowly to improve and once again to take a
keen interest in his advancing career. He spent as much time
with her as he could, and save for rare occasions he remained
at home evenings sternly working on various general staff prob
lems and studies. There still remained many books in his fa
ther's library for him to read.

On May 3, 1913, he was relieved from duty with the General
48

Staff and assigned to the superintendency of the State, War
and Navy Building. This was a sort of routine station in
the training of top junior officers in the Corps of Engineers.
Four months later he received the unusual distinction of being
assigned as a regular member of the General Staff. He was no
longer merely on ''temporary duty with the General Staff."

General Wood's method of operation was to hand out the
various policy problems and subjects under discussion to small
sections or to individuals and at subsequent meetings to re
ceive the reports and then ask questions. He discovered that
often Captain MacArthur did not agree with the older officers
and that he had the courage to present his minority opin
ion. Soon the Chief of Staff began to go over the heads of the
older officers and accept the conclusions of this clear-thinking
junior.

The result was inevitable. Before long Douglas found that
while he had gained the approval of the exacting Chief of
Staff, he had won the quiet envy and dislike of many mem-
bers.of this group of senior officers. He was disturbed, but it was
not in his nature to worry about such matters.

By the turn of 1914 the problems involved in the Mexican
revolution and particularly in the depredations by both rebel
and federal Mexican soldiers had culminated in an insult to
the American flag by Mexican officials at Tampico. As a result
the port of Vera Cruz was unofficially blockaded by U. S. war
ships, and the German steamer Esperanza was denied the right
to land its cargo of war materials destined for the Mexican
Army.

Major General Frederick Funston, commanding general of
the Department of Texas, was ordered to Galveston to take
field command of the elements of a U. S. provisional division
concentrated there. On April 2 1 bluejackets and marines from
the U. S. fleet landed in Vera Cruz.

In Washington lights burned all night in the State, War
and Navy Building. The Army General Staff sat late, consider
ing the possibility of sending an expeditionary force into Mex
ico. In such an event Major General Leonard Wood would
command the field army. He was ordered to Governor's Island,
where he assumed command of the Eastern Department and

49

the duties of bringing up to full strength the ist U. S. Regular
Division.

On April 22, 1914, the day before Wood left Washington,
he conferred with Lindley M. Garrison, Secretary of War. It
was decided that Captain MacArthur should immediately be
sent to Vera Cruz to study the lay of the land and observe
and report on all matters that might be useful to General
Wood and the War Department. The selection of MacArthur
for this assignment caused considerable resentment among the
members of the General Staff, who were all senior to him.
But Wood knew precisely what he wanted. Arrangements
were made for MacArthur's transportation on the battleship
Nebraska, sailing shortly from New York.

Four days later, four transports loaded with troops under
command of Major General Funston dropped anchor in Vera
Cruz harbor, and the following morning docked and the troops
began disembarking. The city was already in the hands of U. S.
marines and bluejackets.

The Nebraska arrived on May i and MacArthur asked per
mission to go ashore in the first launch. He at once paid his
respects to his father's old friend, General Funston, and pre
sented his orders from the Chief of Staff. His official position
was a little incongruous. Until definite telegraphic orders ar
rived later, assigning him as assistant to the engineer officer
of the force, he was an unattached and independent agent
of the General Staff and the War Department, subject only
to the general regulations covering the command.

Funston had only recently received his own confidential or
ders from the Secretary of War. It included the following:

. . . The Secretary of War further directs that you strictly limit
your action in taking over the control of Vera Cruz to the occu
pation of the city and so much of its environs as you find in the
possession of our forces, and that you under no circumstances
extend those limits beyond these necessities and that you do not
initiate any activities or bring about on your own initiative any
situations which might tend to increase the tension of the situa-
50

tion or embarrass your government in its present relation with
Mexico, without implicit orders and directives from the Secretary
in each case. Even should your judgment indicate that something
other than what is now being done should be done you will be
fore acting communicate fully with the Department and await
instructions. . . .

The order was written while MacArthur was on the high
seas, and he knew nothing about it. Since its content was most
confidential, General Funston in his friendly interview made
no reference to it.

Shortly after his arrival MacArthur contacted an old friend
from Washington days, Captain Constant Gordier, an energetic
infantry officer, who shortly put him in touch with a Mexican
who had some valuable information for sale. The meeting led
to an extraordinary and dangerous mission on the part of Cap
tain MacArthur some four days after his arrival at Vera Cruz.
Since he had no official status with the Expedition, he kept the
priceless information he had obtained strictly to himself, save
for Captain Cordier and one or two close friends. He was still
acting as an independent agent of the General Staff and General
Wood. Captain Cordier, who had given the original tip, now
wrote out on his own authority a long letter to General Wood,
still at Governor's Island and busy with the prospect of taking
over the Expedition should hostilities open. Cordier's letter was
the first mention of the affair, and it recited the main events of
the undertaking. Its closing paragraphs read:

I am taking the liberty of sending you this personal letter in
order that a daring reconnaissance of Captain Douglas Mac-
Arthur, General Staff Corps, may properly be brought to your
attention. In my opinion, his splendid and hazardous undertak
ing calls for the bestowal of a Medal of Honor. . . .

... It was a test of supreme courage; and, in my opinion, it
stands out boldly as the only distinguished exploit since the land
ing of our Army on Mexican soil. If any deed of daring merits
the Medal of Honor surely MacArthur's audacious undertaking
is one.

The passionate nature of Captain Cordier's appeal might
have been due partly to his disgust at the bundle of recom
mendations for the Medal of Honor that were being pre-
51

sentcd almost haphazardly in behalf of sailors and marines
after the limited fighting that took place in Vera Cruz on April
22. A total of 47 navy personnel, including Rear Admiral
Frank E. Fletcher, profited in the wholesale distribution of the
country's highest award. The Marine Corps had to be satisfied
with nine medals, one being given to Major Smedley D. Butler.
Four months later, a full month after his return to Wash
ington, Captain MacArthur was requested by General Wood
to write out his own report of the occurrence. It was in the
nature of an order and MacArthur somewhat reluctantly did
so. His report is quoted in full:

September 30 , 1914

From: Capt. Douglas MacArthur, General Staff
To: Major General Leonard Wood
Subject: Detailed report of reconnaissance from

Vera Cruz to Alvarado on the night of May 6, 1914.

1. This report is supplementary to the general one made to you
under date of May 9, 1914. It has not been rendered before as I
did not realize the matter was under consideration.

2. The general purpose of the reconnaissance was the location
of locomotives suitable for road use on the narrow gauge line of
the Inter-Oceanic Railroad. Due to the great shortage of animal
transportation, the command at Vera Cruz was practically im
mobile. Freight and passenger cars were in abundance, but no
road motive power. Every effort was being made to remedy this
state of affairs so that in case of field operations, which appeared
imminent, the command would not be tied to Vera Cruz.

3. Through the maudlin talk of a drunken Mexican, I re
ceived an inkling that a number of engines were hidden some
where on the line connecting Vera Cruz and Alvarado. This man
was sobered up and found to be a railroad fireman and engineer
on the Vera Cruz and Alvarado R. R. He consented after certain
financial inducements had been offered, to assist me in accurately
locating the engines.

4. At this time I occupied at Vera Cruz a unique and rather
difficult status. I had been ordered there before the Fifth Brigade
left Galveston as one of the prospective Assistant Chiefs of Staff
of the First Field Army. My orders were defined in a letter from
the Secretary of War to the Secretary of the Navy under date of
April 23, 1914, in the following words:

"I am very desirous of sending down for purposes of observa-
52

tion and reconnaissance a representative of the War Department.
This officer is Captain Douglas MacArthur, of the General Staff,
who, in case of any aggressive movement by the Army in regard
to Mexico, will function as one of the General Staff officers of
the Commanding General. In order to facilitate his observations
and his passage to Vera Cruz, I would appreciate very much if
the Admiral Commanding be requested to extend such privileges
to him as may be possible and that the Battleship Nebraska
which it is expected will touch at New York tomorrow be di
rected to take him on board as a passenger."

On arrival at Vera Cruz, the headquarters of the Fifth Brigade
did not recognize me as an official member of their command, as
I had no orders assigning me thereto. They took the attitude that
I was an independent staff officer functioning directly under you.
I was permitted to exercise my own judgment in regard to ful
filling my general orders and instructions, subject to only such
limitations as were prescribed by the Military Governor for all
those domiciled in Vera Cruz. In undertaking this reconnaissance,
therefore, I was thrown entirely on my own responsibility, as it
was not feasible or safe to communicate the question to you for
decision. The object of the trip not being aggressive, but merely
for the purpose of obtaining information, my general instructions
as given above seemed to cover the very contingency, and I ac
cordingly made my plans.

5. The Alvarado Railroad is a narrow gauge road connecting
Vera Cruz and Alvarado, distant about 42 miles. The principal
towns en route are Tejar, Medallin, Paso del Toro, Laguna, La
Piedra, and Salinas. We held the line as far as Tejar, nine miles
out. About four miles beyond Tejar, at Paso del Toro, the Al
varado line is crossed by the broad gauge line connecting Vera
Cruz and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. This latter line after
leaving Vera Cruz passes through the town of Boca del Rio, where
it crosses the Jamapa River, before reaching Paso del Toro. From
Vera Cruz to Paso del Toro, therefore, these two railroad lines
formed roughly the two halves of an ellipse. We did not hold the
Isthmus line beyond the outskirts of Vera Cruz.

6. Mexican troops in force were reported near Tejar and in
order to avoid them I determined to proceed along the Isthmus
line as far as Paso del Toro and then change to the Alvarado line.
My general plan was to leave Vera Cruz alone on foot at dusk
and to join my Mexican engineer who was to have a hand-car
on the Alvarado line manned by two Mexicans. From there we

53

were to push along the line until the engines were located and
their condition ascertained. All three of the Mexicans were rail
road men and their affiliations and experience enabled them to
obtain the hand-cars and have them at their appointed places.
For their services I agreed to give them $150.00 gold, payable only
after my safe return to Vera Cruz. Captain Cordier of the 4th
Infantry was the only person outside of these men who knew of
the plan.

7. The night was squally and overcast. At dusk I crossed our
line unseen near the wireless stations, where a detachment of the
yth Infantry was encamped. I was in military uniform with no
attempt to disguise and with absolutely nothing on me in addi
tion to my clothes except my identification tag and my automatic
revolver with ammunition. I found my engineer with a broad
gauge hand-car in the appointed place. I carefully searched him
and after some demur on his part removed his weapons, a ,38-
caliber revolver and a small dirk knife. As a further precaution
against his possible treachery I had him search me so that he
might better realize that there being nothing of value on me my
death would afford him no monetary return. The essence of the
transaction for him, therefore, became my safe return to Vera
Cruz when he would receive his pay.

8. We proceeded as far as Boca del Rio without incident, but
at the Jamapa River found the railroad bridge down. I decided
to leave the hand-car, concealing it as well as possible. After
searching the bank of the river for a short distance, we discov
ered a small native boat by means of which we paddled across,
landing well above the town so as to escape observation. On land
ing we located, after some search, two ponies near a small shack
and mounted on them we followed the trail along the railway
until near Paso del Toro. We then made a detour and hit the
Alvarado line below the town. The two Mexican firemen were
awaiting us with the hand-car. We secreted our ponies and after
I had searched the two newcomers and found them unarmed we
pushed on. Mile after mile was covered with no sign of the en
gines. The line is studded with bridges and culverts and my crew
protested violently at crossing them without investigating their
condition. Time was so short, however, that I dared not stop for
such steps, and had to take them in our stride. I was obliged to
threaten my men to the point of covering them with a revolver
at the first bridge, but after that I had no further trouble with
them. In fact, after getting into the spirit of the thing their con-

54

duct was most admirable. At every town we reached I took one
man and left the car which was run through to the far side by
the other two. I fastened myself by a lashing to the man acting
as my guide so as to insure us against separation and together
we made a circuit of the town, joining the car on the far side.
This took time, but was the only way I could avoid detection.

9. We reached Alvarado shortly after one o'clock and there
found five engines. Two of these were switch engines and worth
less for our purpose. The other three were just what we needed
—fine big road pullers in excellent condition except for a few
minor parts which were missing. I made a careful inspection of
them and then started back.

10. At Salinas, while moving around the town with one of my
men as described above, we were halted by five armed men. They
were on foot and wore no uniforms. They were not soldiers and
were evidently one of the marauding bands that infest the coun
try with brigandage as a trade. We started to run for it and they
opened fire and followed us. We outdistanced all but two and
in order to preserve our own lives I was obliged to fire upon them.
Both went down. I was fearful lest the firing might have fright
ened away my hand-car men, but after some search we found
them awaiting us about a mile beyond the town.

11. At Piedra, under somewhat similar circumstances and in a
driving mist, we ran flush into about fifteen mounted men of the
lame general type. We were among them before I realized it and
were immediately the center of a melee. I was knocked down by
the rush of horsemen and had three bullet holes through my
clothes, but escaped unscathed. My man was shot in the shoulder,
but not seriously injured. At least four of the enemy were brought
down and the rest fled. After bandaging up my wounded man we
proceeded north with all speed possible.

12. Near Laguna we were again encountered and fired upon
by three mounted men who kept up a running fight with the
hand-car. I did not return this fire. All but one of these men were
distanced, but this one man, unusually well mounted, overhauled
and passed the car. He sent one bullet through my shirt and two
others that hit the car within six inches of me, and I then felt
obliged to bring him down. His horse fell across the front of the
car and on the track and we were obliged to remove the carcass
before proceeding.

13. At Paso del Toro we abandoned the hand-car, found the
two ponies where we had left them and made the best of our way

55

back to Boca del Rio where we returned the animals from whence
we had procured them*

14. We found the boat where we had left it and started to
cross the Jamapa River, but when near the shore the boat struck
a snag in the darkness and sank. Fortunately the water at this
point was something less than five feet deep, for in our exhausted
physical condition I do not believe we would have been capable
of swimming. As it was I was hard put to it to keep my wounded
man's head above water. Day was breaking when we reached the
bank, but so wearied were we that we were unable to move on
for nearly half an hour. We then located our first hand-car and
ran in close to Vera Cruz where we crossed the American lines
unobserved.

15. None of the men we encountered were Mexican troops. All
were guerillas undoubtedly bent on general mischief. Owing to
the darkness I was not recognized as an American soldier and in
consequence no alarm was ever felt for the engines. Months later
when traffic was partially resumed I saw one of them running to
Tejar from Alvarado.

[Signed] Douglas Mac Arthur

Captain, General Staff

On December 3 General Wood forwarded his own formal
report to the Adjutant General. He carefully explained that
Captain MacArthur had been sent to Vera Cruz "with general
instructions to obtain, through reconnaissance and other means
consistent with the existing situation, all possible information
which would be of value in connection with possible opera
tions."

The closing paragraph of General Wood's report was defi
nite and unmistakable:

It will be noted that while Captain MacArthur in making this
reconnaissance was carrying out the general instructions which
had been given him to obtain all possible information, he volun
tarily performed at the risk of his life a most gallant and haz
ardous act, an act calling for more than could reasonably hav^
been expected in the way of risk of life. This service was per*
formed before he was assigned to duty with the 5th Brigade, and
before any official information had been received as to an armis-
56

tice. In other words, the reconnaissance was made during the
period of practical hostilities. Captain MacArthur displayed great
gallantry and enterprise, and I believe that the services performed
clearly entitles him to a Medal of Honor, and J recommend that
one be awarded him.

The first endorsement to the document was an order from
the Adjutant General that it be sent to Major General Funston
at Galveston, by order of the Secretary of War, "for remarks."
The grizzled little fighter, with ill health already beginning to
dog his steps, must have been slightly embarrassed to be forced
to report on the activities of the son of the man whom he had
looked up to as his military mentor. But he was as ruggedly
honest as he was brave, and he bluntly stated his case:

1. Until after the return of the expeditionary force from Vera
Cruz, and the entire severance of my connection therewith, I had
not the slightest information regarding the reconnaissance made
by Captain MacArthur, and I have no knowledge except what
is to be obtained from these papers.

2. As the reconnaissance was made to the theory that Captain
MacArthur was not a member of my command at the time, I am
at a loss to know how I can properly make official recommenda
tion on the subject. As a matter of personal opinion I should say
that the risks voluntarily taken and the dangers encountered were
of a most exceptional nature, and that the awarding of the Medal
of Honor would be entirely appropriate and justifiable.

3. I do not consider this the occasion to enter into a discus
sion of the advisability of this enterprise having been undertaken
without the knowledge of the commanding general on the ground,
who from the first was acting under definite, confidential in
struction from the Secretary of War, and who understood thor
oughly that without specific instructions nothing was to be done
that might lead to a resumption of hostilities. However, it must
be presumed that Captain MacArthur was acting in good faith,
and any error of judgment he may have made in undertaking the
hazardous expedition should not, in my opinion, cause him to
lose the appropriate reward. In the enclosed letter of Captain
Cordier to General Wood are several errors of statement as to
conditions at Vera Cruz and our activities there, but I do not
believe it necessary to go into them, as having no direct bearing
on the question under consideration.

57

The papers and their endorsements were returned to the
Chief of Staff, General Hugh L> Scott, who immediately ap
pointed a board of three officers from the War College to report
on the award. Four days after these orders had been issued,
Captain William G. Ball aide-de-camp to General Funston, dis
carded military procedure and wrote a note directly to the
Chief of Staff, General Scott. It is important only in that it
makes clear that through Ball, as representative of General
Funston, Captain MacArthur had kept in touch with the com
mand. And it proved that MacArthur's brother officers of his
own rank who were on the scene and understood his exploit
not only applauded his deed but were the ones who were de
manding that appropriate reward be given him. One part of
Ball's letter read:

I learned of the reconnaissance immediately after its accom
plishment, but made no mention of the matter; as it was impera
tive that the information that had been obtained should be kept
as secret as possible. This information became practically the
basis of our future plans, and our first aggressive steps would have
been to seize the engines that Captain MacArthur located, and
thus make it possible to supply the column when it advanced.
The practical importance of this information, if we had moved
Into Mexico, cannot be overestimated. I am thoroughly familiar
with all the conditions surrounding the reconnaissance, and un
hesitatingly pronounce it one of the most dangerous and difficult
feats in army annals. I was impressed then — and I am now — that
this officer clearly earned a Medal of Honor, and so expressed
myself at the time. I believe that a grave injustice will be done if
such action is not taken.

The board met on February 2, 1915, and one week later sub
mitted its findings.

The opinion praised MacArthur's zeal and initiative but
questioned the propriety of undertaking the enterprise without
the knowledge of the commanding general on the ground. It
feared that to bestow a medal in this case might encourage
other staff officers to similar indiscretions. Its final paragraph
read: "It is recommended that the Medal of Honor be not
awarded." Colonel Charles G, Treat of the General Staff,
58

who had been Commandant of Cadets during MacArthur's last
two years at the Academy, was senior member of the board. Lt.
Colonel William H. Johnston concurred with his findings, but
Major P. D. Lochridge, West Point 1887, submitted a minor
ity report against granting the award, on the grounds that
there was not sufficient proof and the qualification of "above
and beyond the call of duty" was not fulfilled.

Captain MacArthur was incensed. Three days after the
board had announced its findings he wrote a straightforward
memorandum to the Chief of Staff. It took inner fortitude for
him to protest against the findings of his seniors, particularly
as he was personally involved in a matter as delicate as a
Medal of Honor for himself. But to him this was a moral is
sue far beyond the matter of a medal or of his own dispar
agement. He had been a captain for less than four years, yet
he dared oppose the highest authority in what he felt involved
the honor and justice of the Army. It was the first time he was
openly to go against the rigid narrowmindedness and lack of
imagination that prevailed in sections of the General Staff and
in the high command at that time.

General Scott directed that the Assistant Chief of Staff, Brig
adier General Tasker H. Bliss, review the findings and express
an opinion on the board's negative decision. On the back of the
order disavowing the medal Bliss attached his signature with the
single word "Approved." He stood by the board's findings.

Beneath the line and under his signature General Scott
wrote "Approval recommended."

A third endorsement graced the page. It was marked "Ap
proved; Henry Breckenridge, Asst. Secretary of War."

The young captain had lost, but he had gone down fighting.
To many in the army inner circles his protest seemed rash and
impertinent; to others it was courageous and commendable.

There was no question of the propriety of what he did in
the mind of the elderly lady who presided over the pleasant
apartment they shared together.

He had lost this fight, and he would lose many more that
were to come, but he must hold steadfast to his sense of duty,
and to the high moral issue of right and wrong.

59

He must dedicate himself to his country and his career. The
two marched together. They were of the same piece, of the
same identical pattern.

RAINBOW OVER FRANCE

The First World War had been going on for exactly four days
when, on August 10, Captain MacArthur was ordered to return
on the earliest available transportation from Vera Cruz to his
duties in Washington.

Lindley M. Garrison, the harassed Secretary of War, and his
28 General Staff officers on actual duty in the capital had
innumerable problems crowding down on them. The Staff con
sisted of two groups — the War Plans Division and the Mobile
Army Division. MacArthur was assigned to the latter, whose
function was the broad supervision of the Army in being, the
realistic planning for additional forces and the eventual pro
curement of new equipment and munitions.

In the summer of 1915 General Wood, commanding general
of the Eastern seaboard area, pushed through his first Platts-
burg Officers' Training Camp, and MacArthur immediately
became its champion on the General Staff. In February of 19x6,
with the national election still nine months off, Secretary of
War Garrison and Assistant Secretary Breckenridge resigned as
a protest against President Wilson's refusal to adopt a realistic
approach to preparedness. Three weeks later the President an
nounced the appointment of Newton D. Baker, former mayor
of Cleveland, as the new Secretary. The appointment was in the
nature of a political earthquake.

It did not take MacArthur long to penetrate the quiet ex-

terior of this soft-spoken, almost diffident lawyer, who was im
mediately branded by the anti-administration press as a pacifist
tool of President Wilson. The young officer soon realized that
here was a clear, brilliant mind, with the fine ability to make
instant and positive decisions.

Even the fact that the Pancho Villa raid across the border
into Columbus, New Mexico, came when he had been less
than 24 hours in office, did not faze the new Secretary of War.
He found in Generals Scott and Bliss, the Chief of Staff and
the Deputy Chief, the exact type of cool and experienced ad
visors he could trust. He took their advice about a punitive '
expedition into Mexico and their choice of Brigadier General
John J. Pershing as its commander.

But he needed at his finger-tips some keen, imaginative and
highly intelligent younger man who could match his own swift
and uninhibited mind and answer the innumerable questions
of a purely military nature that were constantly cropping up.
He found his man in Douglas MacArthur, now a major.

It took Baker less than a month to grasp the need of pre
paredness as an over-all national policy, and he quietly went
about the difficult business of winning over the President. The
next step was to build up a strong public opinion behind
the whole idea. On June 30, 1916, he had MacArthur detailed
as military aide to the Secretary of War, and placed in charge
of the almost non-existent Bureau of Information of the War
Department. A week later, with the additional title of press
censor attached to his name, MacArthur was made liaison with
the newspapermen who regularly covered the War Department.

MacArthur did not make the national policy, but he did ex
plain it to the country. He spent much time with the Secretary
of War, and from him Mr. Baker learned many things that
had to do with the imponderables of war and army service. He
learned to respect and trust MacArthur, and he became a ready
convert to the idea that the existing National Guard, with its
recent experience on the Mexican border, could be expanded
through volunteer enlistment and turned into reliable and ef
fective combat divisions.

MacArthur became at once a sort of unofficial leader of the
pro-Guard group. As part of the heritage from his father came

61

a passionate belief in the citizen soldier. The son now tell that
if and when war came, Guard divisions should be sent to
France simultaneously with the Regular Army outfits. His idea
found a ready approval in the Secretary's active mind, and it
was passed on to the country through newspaper correspond
ents and the special writers who found it pleasant and profita
ble to drop in for a chat with the affable censor. How deeply
they appreciated what MacArthur was doing for them was
proved by a spontaneous document they sent to Mr. Baker two
days before the United States declared war against Germany.

The letter was signed by the 29 men who were among
the most distinguished representatives of their profession in
Washington. It read:

Washington, D. Cv April 4, ip/7
The Honorable Newton D. Baker,
Secretary of War
Dear Mr. Secretary:

It seems quite likely that the days of action before us will see
many changes in the corps of newspaper correspondents who have
been assigned to the War Department for many months past.
Some of us will go a-soldiering and others into fields of activity
connected with the war. Changes will come, too, in the assign
ment of army officers whom we have learned to know here in the
Department, and before that time comes, we of the Fourth Es
tate wish to address to you, and through you to Major Douglas
MacArthur, our appreciation of the way he has dealt with us
for all these months in his trying position of military censor.

We feel no doubt of what the future holds for Major Mac-
Arthur. Rank and honors will come to him if merit can bring
them to any man; but we wish to say our thanks to him for the
unfailing kindness, patience and wise counsel we have received
from him in the difficult days that are past.

Our needs have compelled us to tax that patience at all hours

of the day and night. We have never failed to receive courteous

treatment from him. Although the censorship imposed was but a

voluntary obligation upon the press, it has been kept faithfully,

and we feel that it has been largely because of the fair, wise and

liberal way in which Major MacArthur exercised his functions

' that this was possible. He has put his own personality into the

task.

No man can ever know to what extent the cordial relations the

62

Major has maintained with the press may have influenced na
tional thought on military matters. It is unquestionable that his
hours given to our conferences have never been wasted; they have
born fruit in what we in our turn have written and if wise de
cisions are reached eventually as to the military policy of our
country, we cannot but feel that the major has helped, through
us, to shape the public mind.

Respectfully,
Edwin M. Hood, A.P.
George N. Gavin, I.N.S.
Carl D. Groat, U.P.
Richard V. Oulahan, N.Y. Times
Lawrence Hills, N.Y. Sun
A. N. Jamieson, Central News
Graf ton S. Wilcox, Chicago Tribune
Lewellyn Brown, N.Y. Herald
Frank W. Connor, N.Y. World
Irwin Barbour, N.Y. American
L. W. Moffett, Cleveland Daily

Iron Trade

L. Ames Brown, Philadelphia Record
Stephen L Early, A.P.
Hal H. Smith, N.Y. Times
Albert W. Fox, N.Y. Sun
Matthew F. Tighe, N.Y. American
T. Holman Harvey, U.P.
Arthur Sweetser, A.P.
R. M. Boeckel, I.N.S.
K. L. Simpson, A.P.
/. K. Dougherty, Washington Times
Leroy T. Vernon, Chicago Daily News
W. E. Brigham, Boston Eve'g Transcript
R. A. Zachary, Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Harry B. Hunt, Scripps-McRae

Newspaper*

Alfred J. Clarke, Washington Star
E. L. Conn, Foreign Affairs News Service
O. McKee, Jr., N.Y. World
Aaron B. Rosenthal, Milwaukee Journal

While it made very pleasant reading for MacArthur, he
knew that the letter would arouse more envy among some

63

members of the General Staff who were his senior in years
and rank. After all, his concern at the moment was how to
shake loose from the General Staff and be assigned to duty
with the Line and thus with luck get to France and into ac
tion.

He saw Pershing arrive from the Mexican border on May
10, 1917, and two weeks later secretly slip off for France with
his small staff. But the young major had little time for wishes
or regrets; he had the national draft to promote and sell to
the public, and he had his friendly newspapermen waiting for
their daily ration of copy and advice.

When war broke on April 6, 1917, the two oldest officers on the
active list who were attached to the War Department, were
Major General Tasker H. Bliss, Chief of Staff, and his West
Point classmate of the class of 1875, Brigadier General William
A. Mann, chief of the militia division of the General Staff.
The Secretary found that General Mann's ideas regarding the
citizen soldier and the National Guard were closely in ac
cord with those of Major MacArthur. The two soldiers, one 63
and the other just turning 37, thought that both the Regular
Army and the National Guard should be expanded and incor
porated into the federal service, along with a drafted National
Army that would be swiftly built up.

Baker saw the wisdom of the over-all proposal and gave it his
full support. There was heavy pressure from France urging
that for morale purposes a Regular Army division should be
sent overseas as quickly as possible. So tragic was the condition
of national unpreparedness that the ist Regular Division
was the single outfit that approached a fair state of readiness.

When the decision had been reached regarding the ist Regu
lar Division, the next problem facing the Secretary was which
army divisions should immediately follow. Some years later
Mr. Baker, in reply to an inquiry by Brigadier General
Henry J. Reilly, the official historian of the 4snd Division,
wrote the following report:
64

ENGLISH
CHANNEL

SB VE L. G i o M

F R

Where American troops saw service in France in 1917-1918.

When the problem arose as to which National Guard divi
sion should be sent to France first, we faced the situation that
New York and Pennsylvania were the only states that had com
plete National Guard divisions and were, therefore, in the most
advanced stage of preparation for overseas service. We had not
gone very far in the war, and public psychology was still an un
certain and mystifying factor. If we sent the New York National
Guard first, we might have encountered two kinds of comment;
first, from the people of New York who might have said why
send our boys first; or, we might have had comment from other
states charging that we were preferring New York and giving it
first chance. I disclosed my puzzle to Major MacArthur, who was
attached to my office at the time. He suggested the possibility o£
our being able to form a division out of the surplus units from
many states, the major part of whose National Guard organiza
tions were in multi-state divisions.

I sent for General Mann, who was Chief of the Militia Division,
and asked him whether there were enough surplus units to organ
ize such a division and told him why I wanted to have a division
which would represent as many states as possible. General Mann
responded that it would be very easy to form such a Division and
pointed out some of the states from which elements could be
drawn. Major MacArthur who was standing alongside said, 'Fine,
that will stretch over the whole country like a rainbow/ The Di
vision thus got its name.

When General Mann returned to my office a little later with
the details of his plan for the Division, I said to him that I wanted
him to prepare the plans, organize the Division, and take it over
seas as its commanding general on one condition, which was that
he should take Major MacArthur as his chief of staff. I have rarely
seen anybody filled with greater enthusiasm than he was for both
these suggestions.

It was great news that Douglas MacArthur carried home that
night to his mother. He knew that while General Mann would
for a time have the rank and honor of being the commanding
general of the unique division, it actually was and would con
tinue to be his own outfit. He would now hold the rank o£ full
colonel in the National Army.

66

Second only to the ist Division, the Rainbow sponsors had
the initial good fortune to pick and choose their senior officers
from the flower of the Regular Army. For their two infantry
brigade commanders the Mann-MacArthur team chose Colonel
Robert A. Brown, West Point 1885, and Colonel Michael J.
Lenihan, class of 1887. The fact that Colonel Brown had
served as aide-de-camp to Douglas Mac Arthur's father in the
Philippines in 1901-02 possibly had something to do with his
appointment.

For the artillery brigade commander they picked Major
Charles P. Summerall, class of 1892, who also had served un
der Major General Arthur Mac Arthur in the Philippines and
as a first lieutenant in the famous Reilly's Battery of the 5th
Field Artillery during the Boxer uprising in Peking in 1900.
Major Summerall was at the moment in charge of field artillery
affairs in the Militia Bureau of the War Department.

These three brigade commanders were all made brigadier
generals in the National Army on August 5, 1917. On that
same date Major Douglas MacArthur of the Corps of Engineers
became a colonel of infantry in the National Army. At last he
was in the Line.

The majority of the senior officers of the divisional staff were
from the Regular Army, and a number of unit commanders
also had been in the regular service. Among these was Major
Robert E. Wood, West Point 1900, who had retired in 1915
after serving ten years with distinction on the Panama Canal
Commission. Wood was made a colonel and was designated as
commanding officer of the ii7th Train Headquarters and the
military police. Shortly after arriving in France he and several
other crack officers were looted from the Rainbow and at
tached to Pershing's G.H.Q.

In a rather special way the Rainbow Division was a tight
and proud outfit. Henry J. Reilly, the unusually able colonel
of the i49th Field Artillery regiment from Illinois, had been
three years with MacArthur at West Point, graduating in 1904;
after ten years of active service as a cavalryman, he resigned to
become a war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and a
pleader for preparedness. And there was Grayson M. P. Murphy,
who had been a West Point classmate of MacArthur's, even-

67

tually resigning from the Army to enter Wall Street. With
the coming of the war he went to Europe as an American Red
Cross Commissioner, but when the Rainbow arrived in France,
he insisted on retiring from his high post and joining the divi
sion and was assigned Assistant G-g of the staff.

One of the battalion commanders of the old New York 6gth
Infantry — now designated as the i65th — was a brilliant young
lawyer, William J. Donovan, soon to be dubbed "Wild Bill/' At
the end of the war he was called "the bravest of the brave" by
Father Duffy, famous chaplain of the regiment. Donovan was
the only soldier in the A.E.F. to win every United States dec
oration, including the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Serv
ice Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal and two Purple
Hearts.

The list of superior men in the division was almost endless;
Colonel Ben Hough of the i66th Ohio and Colonel Bill Screws
of the i67th Alabama. (How these proud bucks enjoyed an
swering the inevitable question, "Where you from, Buddy?"
with their standard reply, "We're from Alagoddambam.")
Then there was Colonel Robert H. Tyndall of the 150th In
diana Field Artillery; and Colonel George E. Leach of the
i5ast Minnesota Field Artillery; Colonel William Kelly, of
the n7th Engineers, a West Pointer and a regular major of the
Corps of Engineers, who had graduated No* 2 at the Acad
emy the year MacArthur entered; and Colonel E. R. Bennett,
of the i68th Iowa, who wore himself out in the fighting and
handed over his splendid regiment to Lt. Colonel Matthew A.
Tinley. Both Bennett and Tinley, as well as all three of the
battalion majors, had served in the old 5$nd Iowa Volunteers
under General Arthur MacArthur in his famous 8th Division
during the Philippine Insurrection. There were other superb
officers who helped the Rainbow to win fame and immortality.

At Camp Mills on Long Island Colonel MacArthur worked
day and night in a wooden shack that housed the division staff
during August and September 1917 to whip the 27,000 men
into shape. His goal was not only for the Rainbow to be the
second complete division to arrive in France, but to take with
it sufficient extra clothing and equipment to last six months.

But New England's s6th Division, raised from Guard units
68

of the several states in that part of the country, beat the Rain
bow to France by several weeks. More than half the 2nd Reg
ular Division also preceded the Rainbow overseas. Hard luck
seemed to dog the 4snd, for a large part of the supplies it
had so carefully garnered and carried along — including 50,000
pairs of heavy shoes — were confiscated by other outfits or lost
in the great war shuffle in France. And when the drivers and
mule skinners from the division wagon trains and the artil
lery batteries went to the port of St. Nazaire to pick up their
carefully selected American horses and mules, they got only
bony, third-rate left-overs raked in from the tiny farms of
France and Spain. But by this time they had learned to swear
and repeat the endless refrain C'est la guerre. For nothing
really mattered much as long as the division shared the honor
of being one of the first four outfits to get to France.

MacArthur sailed on the Covington, the former Kaiser Wil~
helm der Grosse, leaving Hoboken October 18, 1917. He had
had no single day of leave, not even a Sunday off, since that
morning in early July when he first spoke the magic word
"Rainbow."

The outfit with the beautiful name soon took on much of
the color, dash and unique flavor of its chief of staff and
founder. All his life the division was to occupy a peculiar place
in MacArthur's heart. In the years to come he was never too
busy to open his door to any man who had worn the Rainbow's
colorful patch on his sleeve.

His father had felt the same way about the men who had
served with him in the 24th Wisconsin in the Civil War, and
about the soldiers of the six Western regiments that had com
prised his famous 8th Division in the Philippines.

From his father he had inherited, along with this pride of
outfit, a sense of leadership that was of the essence of the elusive
and deathless thing called soldiering.

The orders that were handed Colonel MacArthur when the
Covington tied up to the dock at St. Nazaire on December
i were extremely disconcerting.

69

The infantry regiments aboard the ships in this initial con
voy were to be unloaded immediately and shipped in the mis
erable little "4O-and-8" French boxcars to training areas south of
Toul, in eastern France. But the artillery brigade aboard the
President Lincoln was not to be disembarked.

The original plan had been for the brigade to move to the
artillery training sector at Coetquidam, in the Breton peninsula,
site of the French military school, where it would receive its
quota of French 755 for the regiments from Illinois and Min
nesota, and the new 1555, or heavies, for the Indiana outfit. But
now came the new orders, and Brigadier General Charles P.
Summerall and his three regiments could cool their heels
aboard ship, while they cursed and wondered.

MacArthur sensed that there was more behind the order
than met the eye. He sought immediate clarification from
G.H.Q.

Then the blow fell: I Corps, that was being organized in
Chaumont, would consist of three divisions, with the fourth di
vision — the 4snd now arriving — to be used as replacements. It
foretold the end of the Rainbow for 27,000 proud men.

MacArthur quietly passed on to Brigadier General Summer-
all the alarming news that the Rainbow was to be a replace
ment division. MacArthur knew the quality and imagination of
the artillery colonels, and he knew how deep was Secretary Bak
er's personal affection for the division. There was still no cen
sorship in France for private cables to the United States, and
overnight dispatches started arriving at the Washington offices
of certain highly placed Senators and Representatives. A day
or two later important callers began dropping in at the offices
of the Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff. This rape of
the Rainbow must be called off. The 42nd Division already
had helped glue the nation together in its great war effort, and
it must not be broken up.

It is uncertain how much Pershing personally resented the
obvious pressure that had been brought on the War Depart
ment to cancel his orders that the 42 nd be turned into re
placements: but there were unquestionably certain members of
his G.H.Q. who blamed the whole affair on MacArthur and
never forgave him for what they considered his interference.
70

Among these high staff officers that had this feeling were Per-
shing's G~3, Major General Fox Conner, and Adjutant Gen
eral "Corky" Davis. Most of this tight group were known as
"The Ninety-eighters" from their West Point class. They had
been prominent in the Leavenworth schools, and they had long
distinguished themselves as staff officers. At the end of the war
the little G.H.Q. crowd that had never been quite reconciled
toward the brilliant young Mac Arthur was joined by the then
Colonel George C. Marshall.

The infantry regiments of the 42nd had been in training
camps a bare ten days when orders came to march overland, as
far as 50 kilometers in some cases, over sleety, slippery roads in
zero weather. Many of the men were without underwear, and
there were others who had no overcoats. Some 400 men of
New York's i65th Infantry were left behind because their shoes
were too worn to undertake the desperate march.

Herbert Corey, one of the stern and experienced American
correspondents in France at that time, listened to MacArthur
rail against the intolerable situation. So wrought up was he
that he told Corey he might make full use of the information.
Corey wrote a bristling, indignant story and submitted it to
G.H.Q. censorship. It was promptly turned down. Again Corey
submitted it. It was refused. Corey kept at it until the division
got adequate clothing.

On December 15 Major General Mann, who had the
honor of organizing the division and taking it to France, was
relieved by Charles T. Menoher, a regular colonel in the
Field Artillery, who had been a classmate of General Pershing.
MacArthur soon won the complete confidence of this new com
manding officer. Never as long as MacArthur was Chief of Staff
did General Menoher interfere with his practical operation of
the division.

By middle December the Rainbow was settled in scattered vil
lages and farms along the valley of the Meuse river, prepared
to accept the prospect of a dreary Christmas. It was the coldest
winter that France had had in many years, and the billets,

71

crowded with American troops who were poorly clothed and
even short of adequate blankets, were bitterly uncomfortable.

Two days before Christinas General Pershing appeared at
the division headquarters for his initial inspection. At Camp
Mills MacArthur had lifted an enterprising young second lieu
tenant, Walter B. Wolf, from Reilly's 149* Field Artillery, and
attached him to his staff as a sort of fifth wheel. Wolf, who
hailed from Chicago, had been a cum laude and crewman at
Yale, and his alert and loyal mind fulfilled MacArthur's rather
sharp requirements.

On this cold pre-Christmas day in France when Pershing told
MacArthur he wanted to drive around the training area, Mac-
Arthur chose Lieutenant Wolf to act as a guide and lead off in
a motorcycle side-car. Unfortunately Wolf overran a turn, and
Pershing's black Rolls Royce had to back-and-fill and maneuver
to get turned around and onto the proper road.

Pershing opened the door of his car and berated the unfor
tunate Wolf for his error. He was a master at this sort of thing,
and the rather diffident Wolf was getting nowhere in his at
tempt at explanation and apology.

"I think I must share at least half the blame, sir," MacAr
thur broke in. "Lieutenant Wolf has been on almost constant
duty at headquarters and he has had little opportunity to
learn every detail of these roads. I am the one really responsi
ble."

General Pershing grunted his acceptance, and in Wolf, Mac-
Arthur won a devoted friend for life.

Constantly MacArthur fought to keep the division together.
Brigadier General Summerall shortly was ordered to command
the artillery brigade of the ist Division, and a little later Colo
nel Robert E. Wood and other valuable officers fell to the long
arm of G.H.Q. Back in Long Island the Chief of Staff had
singled out the highly intelligent and tireless Major William J.
Donovan of the ist Battalion of the iGsth New York as a fight-
kig man after his own heart. Donovan had been sent to a French
school of the line soon after they reached France, and the
commander of the school tapped the brilliant Rainbow officer
to remain on as an instructor. "Wild Bill" hurried to MacAr
thur's Headquarters with his story. He did not want to be an
72

instructor or in fact anything but the best battalion commandei
in the Rainbow Division.

"Let's go, Bill," MacArthur said to him. "Don't ever let them
get you away from the Line. Fighting men are the real sol
diers."

MacArthur drove Donovan 4o-odd miles to G.H.Q. at Chau-
mont. He talked his way quickly into the office of the
commander-m-chief and presented the case of a fighting Irish
man who wanted to continue to be just that. Pershing nodded
his approval. He, too, liked fighting men.

On February 14, 1918, orders came for the 4^nd to move
into a fairly quiet combat sector in the Lun£ville and Bac
carat areas. The division's four infantry regiments were to
battle-train with four French divisions, and all would be un
der the command of General DeBazelaire of the French 7th
Army Corps.

A number of times American units, preparing for night
raids or undergoing heavy shelling, suddenly found MacArthur
in their midst, a tall, serious figure in a barracks cap, with a
riding crop under his left arm and a quiet word of approval on
his lips. As a result of his personal leadership in one of these
raids General DeBazelaire on February 26 recommended Mac-
Arthur for a Croix de Guerre. It was his first combat medaL
The second came March 9 when he accompanied a heavy
daylight raid by French units and two companies of the 16 8th
Iowa, which 1 8 years before had served under his father in the
Philippines as the 5ist Iowa Volunteers. The desperate little
affair brought Colonel MacArthur his first Distinguished Serv
ice Cross, the second-highest battle decoration his nation could
give.

The misty, half-rainy March days were ideal for the Ger
mans to lay down their poison gas barrages. There were no
frightening explosions as was the case with ordinary artillery
shells, but only a subdued warning whistle and then a queer
dull thud as the thin outside casings broke apart and the
deadly gas escaped. MacArthur, roaming the damp and dan
gerous front areas, stepped squarely into a saturated spot.
Wolf, now a captain and acting adjutant, managed to get him
back to his own quarters. He wanted to take him to the hospi-

73

tal, but MacArthur refused and would not even let him send
for the surgeon. It might mean that he would be separated
from his command, and he believed that an officer's place was
with his troops. Save for passing through the outskirts of Paris
on a troop train, he never so much as entered that city, nor did
he indulge himself in a single day's leave during the full year
and a half he was in France.

On March 21, 1918, the Germans unloosed their great at
tack in the North against the British Fifth Army, in a desper
ate gamble to end the war before the American Army was fully
ready. The four French divisions with which the 42nd had
been in training were withdrawn, and for 82 straight days the
Rainbow alone remained in more or less active front-line com
bat, with battle casualties totaling 2,014 killed and wounded.
On June 16 the order arrived for its relief.

The units began at once the march to the loading quays at
Charmes and other railheads, some of the outfits trudging 40
miles or more. There was no time for "spit and polish." No
new clothing had been issued for months, the transport and
equipment were shabby, and the horses were gaunt and miser
able.

Since dawn on the day of June 21, Colonel MacArthur
and Captain Wolf had been on the loading ramps that led to
the open doors of the tiny horse-and-soldier cars strung out in
the railroad yards at Charmes. Around 2 in the afternoon Gen
eral Pershing and some of his staff strode up the ramp. Appar
ently they had been inspecting the arriving columns, with their
battle-scarred wagons and artillery trains moving toward the
several loading points.

Pershing was a dozen feet away when he turned loose his
crisp, hard voice on MacArthur. Soldiers and junior officers
busy on the ramp were close at hand, but there was no effort
by the Commanding General of the A.E.F. to keep his words
from their ears or to soften the blow he was delivering.

"This division is a disgrace," he barked out. "The men are
poorly disciplined and they are not properly trained. The
whole outfit is just about the worst I have seen."

MacArthur was aghast. It was rough enough to come under
74

the direct ire of the Commanding General in private, but there
were others here to listen to every word spoken and see every
gesture made.

"MacArthur," General Pershing continued, "I'm going to
hold you personally responsible for getting discipline and or
der into this division. I'm going to hold you personally re
sponsible for correcting measures with the officers at fault. I
won't stand for this. It's a disgrace."

"Yes, sirl" MacArthur answered, as he saluted.

Pershing gave him no chance to explain. The division had
been in the muck and misery of the line for almost three
months. It had just marched 60 kilometers through mud. But
Pershing wanted no explanations.

He turned on his heel and stamped off down the ramp. Mae-
Arthur's face flushed and then drained of blood until it was
ashen gray. He could not believe what he had heard and seen.

Without a word he walked toward the little town, its narrow
streets crowded with men and transport of his division — his dis
graced division.

Wolf walked by his side. MacArthur spoke no word. Auto
matically he returned salutes, but he was as one beside himself.
Finally, half exhausted, he took a seat on a bench in the tiny
green square. Twilight was descending, and from the rear
came the shouts of men loading animals and guns and caissons.
Then he began to talk. The division would suffer now. It
would be discriminated against. It was utterly unfair.

Wolf tried to make clear that this was Pershing's way, the
technique of his rugged discipline. Then why, MacArthur de
manded, had he not done it quietly and waited for an explana
tion? What could Pershing have against him? Could it be some
ancient grudge he might have held against his father?

Never did MacArthur find the answer. Time and again
Pershing or his people back in G.H.Q. would send inspectors to
comb through the division for such little faults as they might
discover and report. Finally came the last straw. Late one aft
ernoon a booted and spurred colonel, fresh and immaculate
from the Inspector General's office at Chaumont, appeared at
division headquarters with minor complaints. MacArthur

75

blazed out at the elegant gentleman, ordering him to get out
Of the division area under threat that he would personally
shoot the trouble-maker if he found him there again!

Apparently MacArthur overwhelmed him by the very fury of
his anger. Strange things happen in war.

The division was headed now for the bitter fighting along the
Marne. The 2nd Division, with its magnificent brigade of ma
rines, and the 3rd and the s6th Divisions had all done valiant
work in checking the Boche drive toward Paris. The Rainbow
would now be grouped with the s6th from New England and
the 3 snd from Michigan and Wisconsin to form a great road
block against the coming German attack.

But at the last minute orders were changed, and the Rain
bow was assigned to the brilliant, one-armed General Henri
J. E. Gouraud and his famous French Fourth Army, Evidence
had come to Foch that the Germans were about to launch an
all-out attack in the white chalk cliffs and plains of the Cham
pagne to the south of the Marne in a terrific effort to break
through to Paris.

On July 4 the division swung to the right toward its new
battle destination. Gouraud, alert to the new type of by-pass
offensive that the Germans had worked out in their successful
rolling back of the British Fifth Army on March 21, 1918,
had evolved a completely new theory of defense. The Boche
had swiftly broken through and around the heavily manned
British front lines and pushed ahead toward the lightly held
rear areas. Here in the Champagne the actual forward lines
were now manned by skeleton sacrifice units, waiting to fire
their rocket signals when the German barrage lifted and the
gray-clad troops began their actual assault.

The intermediary line of defense would be held by wired-m
pockets with machine guns and ample fire power. Once the
Germans succeeded in breaking up or by-passing this middle
line of defense nests, they would then come into contact with
the main defenses. It was an entirely new idea of defense-in-

76

depth that promised to become a death-trap to those who broke
through the first two lines.

July 14 was Bastille Day, the greatest of all French holidays.
Wise old Gouraud figured the Boche might attempt their
break-through at dawn, and when the day passed bright and
quiet, he staged a little supper in the late afternoon at the for
tified Ferme de Suippe, which he used as his battle headquar
ters. Mac Arthur with the other colonels and general officers of
the Rainbow sat down at the long table, interspersed among the
men of Gouraud's staff and high officers of the French troops
in the sector.

It was a plain but excellent meal, such as only French army
chefs in those war days seemed to know how to create al
most out of nothing. And when the meal was over, the great
General rose and made a speech so touching and so heart
warming that no one there can ever forget it. Candles flickered
along the long, pine table, and tears filled men's eyes.

The meeting broke up while the glow of twilight made it
still possible for the various commanders to return to their bat
tle stations before night fell.

Luck was with Gouraud, in large measure because of an in
credible act of valor on the part of four French reconnais
sance soldiers. Late that evening they penetrated the German
front lines and drifting far to the rear located the exact posi
tion of the main attack force and captured a Prussian who
had the written orders for the coming attack. It was clear that
the enemy artillery bombardment was to begin exactly at mid
night. Four hours later the infantry would start their assault.

Gouraud moved swiftly. He ordered the Allied guns to open
at 11:30 P.M., one half-hour before the Boche guns started fir
ing. Every road, gun nest and concentrating area in the en
emy's rear was to be shelled without letup. It was a deadly
gamble; if the information was wrong, it would tip off the
Germans to the complete awareness of the defenders.

MacArthur, watching the Allied bombardment from the en
trance of his dugout a little behind the main line of defense,
checked the minutes as they slipped by; 12 midnight — and no
answering bombardment; 12:05 — and still no move; 12:10 — and

77

thousands of enemy guns seemed to rip the sky apart and shoot
down the very stars. It was the greatest concentration of artillery
the world had known. The boom of the big guns on both sides
could be heard that night in Paris, almost 100 miles away.
France was again in peril.

At 4:17 in the morning the German bombardment of the
front lines lifted, and out of the dawn came the gray-clad
Boche. The warning rockets exploded in the red skies, and the
isolated lookouts, including Rainbow men, went to their death.

Units of all four of the 42nd Division infantry regiments,
in their islands along the intermediate position, worked their
guns and held their ground. The Germans flowed around
them, only to crash into the main defense line. In a few spots
the enemy broke through, but everywhere else he was repulsed
and driven back. In due time came the French and Ameri
can counterattacks, and by afternoon the outcome was clear:
the last great attack of the Germans in the war had failed.
Paris was saved.

MacArthur would never serve again under the old French
hero, but there was no question that each appealed deeply
to the other. In General Gouraud the American found his ideal
battle commander, and from the older man's wisdom and flam
ing patriotism he took certain indestructible truths that be
came a part of his philosophy of life and war.

Years later when he was Army Chief of Staff, MacArthur
sent a Christmas cable to the aging Gouraud. It read: "Like
wine, time only improves the flavor of a great comradeship."

Long before this date, the crippled little hero had attested to
his side of the unique friendship. The particular proof lies in
a curious document that bears printing:

AMERICAN EMBASSY,

OFFICE OF THE MILITARY ATTACH^,
LONDON

May 15, 1919

From: Lt. Col. S.L.H. Slocum
To: The Adjutant General, Washington
Subject: Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur

i. Recently while visiting the French Front and the Army of
Occupation, I met General Gouraud, French Army, at luncheon
78

in Strasburg. After the luncheon General Gouraud came up to
me and asked me if I knew General Douglas MacArthur of the
American Army. I stated I did know him. He then remarked:
"I consider General MacArthur to be one of the finest and bravest
officers I have ever served with."

2. I think this should be put on General MacArthur's personal
record.

S.L.H. Slocum,
Lt. Colonel

Somehow in those chalk hills and deadly woods of the Cham
pagne and in the terror of the German attack that failed, Mac-
Arthur caught a glimpse of the new technique in offensive tac
tics that he would mull over for a quarter-century to come.
Then, when his own moment arrived, he would lift the lesson
in tactics into the realm of strategy — and the great by-pass of
the Southwest Pacific would be born.

It was time for Generalissimo Foch to strike back. The fifth
and last great German attack of the spring and summer of
1918 had failed, and the power of decision was now for the
first time in almost four years in the hands of the Allies.

On the west side of the deep Marne bulge near the impor
tant railhead of Soissons, the ist and 2nd American Divisions
were hurriedly larded between French outfits, and on July 18
a desperate Allied offensive opened. It was never to cease until
the signing of the Armistice on November 1 1.

Two days after the offensive began, the 42nd was withdrawn
from the Champagne defensive front and ordered to the Marne
to fight under General Degoutte of the French Sixth Army. In
the black, murky night of July 25-26, the infantry regiments
of the two brigades began to unload from buses and other car
riers with orders to relieve at dawn the units of the exhausted
26th New Englanders. For almost a week the men of the U. S.
26th and the $rd Divisions with a brigade of the 28th had
driven the stubborn enemy from the north bank of the Marne
toward the high hills across the tiny Ourcq river. To add
to the general confusion and uncertainty, General Menoher,

79

MacArthur's division commander, now received orders that the
Germans, who were now pulling out, must be pursued and kept
off-base at all cost. It was a frightening and bewildering front,
and part of that first morning's fighting was with the bayonet
alone under orders that no shots be fired. But the real surprise
was the other way around; Rainbow men going forward through
the mists suddenly heard the death song of German bullets from
hidden machine guns ahead of them and on both flanks.

MacArthur walked the deadly woods and studied the fields
of slaughter. He realized the terrible mistake: the Germans
were no longer rapidly retreating with only a small rear guard
left to cover their withdrawal. Instead, substantial Boche forces
had settled down here on these slopes and in these bits of pro
tecting woods, and behind stout stone walls and farm buildings
they had planted their heavy machine guns and mortars in a
determined defense. No American advances were possible un
less made over cleared fields swept by enemy fire. Yet there were
orders from higher up that demanded that they cross the river
and take the slopes beyond, regardless of the complete lack of
artillery preparation to silence the German positions.

No words can describe the terror and death that lay in wait
along these poppy-covered hillsides and in the woods and wall-
enclosed farms of the green countryside. Doughboys from New
York and Ohio, from Iowa and Alabama and special units from
a dozen other states stalked the spitting machine-gun nests, only
to be cut to shreds by deadly streams spurted at them from some
unsuspected direction.

Finally they learned how to crawl forward in twos and
threes, Indian fashion, and when some unconquerable little
group had reached a nest of stubborn enemy guns, they would
throw their hand grenades and then spring on the enemy. It
was not strange that few prisoners were taken.

The succeeding five days and nights were full of anguish for
MacArthur. He had nothing to do but follow the orders sent
down from Corps and Army. Sergy, Mercy Farm, Nesles, Foret
de F&re, Hill 212 — these were names and memories that would
forever live in his mind. He vowed that he would never be
guilty of ordering a brutal frontal attack without full recon-
80

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naissance, sure information and adequate bombardment prep
aration.

It seemed the end would never come. Stubbornly held points
would be taken, and then came deadly enemy fire and counter
attacks. The same stone farms and bits of woods change hands
a half-dozen times. There was neither rest nor hope.

Shortly after midnight on August i Captain Wolf, inspecting
the battalion and company posts of command, noted unusual
activity out front in the German lines. He reported back to
MacArthur's command post. Then runners whom Wolf had left
behind came in with the word that there was a sudden end to all
Boche activity.

MacArthur needed no more proof. He was certain now that
the Germans were withdrawing. At 3:30 that morning he
walked along the entire division front, calling at each battalion
C.P. He ordered the various units to move ahead immediately.
They must dog the steps of the retreating Germans.

There was no time to seek the approval of his own division
commander or of the corps headquarters. MacArthur alone
must assume the grave responsibility for ordering the dawn ad
vance. If he was wrong, he might have to pay for his brash
courage with his military career. But he knew he could not
be wrong.

That day the 4th Division of Regulars passed through the
battered 42nd to harass the enemy retreating to the high south
ern slopes of the Vesle. The Rainbow was to be denied the
privilege of hot pursuit, but MacArthur, who had always in
sisted that combat engineers could serve as first-class infantry
men, saw to it that the Rainbow's i i7th Engineers took part in
at least the first half of the great follow-up.

The weary Rainbow now buried its dead and carried off its
wounded. Quietly it slipped back into the warm, sunny valley
of the Marne.

Here the men bathed in the pleasant stream and revelled in
clean, fresh clothing and new equipment and in a great influx
of replacements. For the Rainbow had paid a frightful cost
for the few kilometers it had gained on the Ourcq and for the
glory it had won. In the five days it had suffered casualties in
82

killed and wounded of 5,529, mostly in its four regiments of in
fantry.

MacArthur, lonely in his heartache and distressed by the
mistake that had been made by the high command, now wore
a single star on each shoulder. Shortly after the division had
left the Lorraine front, word had come to him that he had
been nominated as a brigadier general. Later came the devas
tating news that he was to be sent home to command and train
a brigade of the newly organized nth Regular Division to be
formed at Camp Meade, Maryland.

The Rainbow's commander, Major General Menoher, reg
istered his violent protest. Captain Wolf hurried to Chaumont
with the plea that MacArthur could not be spared at the very
moment when the division was about to bear a goodly part in
the coming Champagne offensive. Nevertheless, there were re
peated orders for him to leave his beloved outfit. Finally, how
ever, he was permitted to stay on.

The killing and the sleepless rigor of hard battle on the
Ourcq had been a little too much for the fatherly Brigadier
General Brown of the 84th Infantry Brigade. It called for the
stamina and endurance of a younger man. MacArthur would
now take over the two regiments of the 84th Brigade, the stout
men from Alabama and Iowa. Rebel and Yank, they fought
joyously among themselves, but when they faced the enemy,
they battled side by side almost as a single unit.

No longer would MacArthur have to worry over the count
less details of supply, equipment, transport, training and bat
tle plans for a great square division. He would now have for
his own two magnificent regiments with their supporting
troops and machine-gun battalions — and always he would in
sist on a full brigade of artillery to support his attacks.

He could now break with his telephone and his division
headquarters. He could fight his brigade on his own feet, try
out his own theories of command and leadership. He was 38
and ready for the test.

83

6
THE END OF THE RAINBOW

It was an experienced and far wiser division that jumped off
on the St. Mihiel front two weeks after the end of the bloody
Ourcq fighting.

The clearing out of this strong St. Mihiel salient, which the
Germans had held for four years, was a purely professional jab
for the toughened Rainbow and its comrades in the ist and
8gth Divisions, with the 3rd Division — the famous "Rock of the
Marne" — in reserve. By noon of that first murky day the Rain
bow men reached the objective set for their initial drive. A
thousand prisoners snailed back to the prepared pens in the
rear. MacArthur's 84th Brigade had enveloped the stubborn
Bois de la Sonnard and then driven straight through it.

By the following noon the division had almost reached its
final objectives, and its casualties had remained light. MacAr-
thur, remembering the deadly confusion and mistakes of the
Ourcq battle, had vowed that he would have no part in need
less slaughter. Never again would a soldier of his be sacrificed
unless it was absolutely necessary. He would obey orders, but he
would never hesitate to appeal with all his power against in
structions he knew were wrong and costly. The commander on
the spot must have flexibility and a certain power of decision.
He never forgot the terrible lesson he had learned on the
Ourcq.

The afternoon of the second day at St. Mihiel a group of
Mgh officers, gathered on the top of a small knoll, witnessed
one of those rare moments that now and again light up battle
fields with a strange glory. There ahead, on down the broad
Wouvre plain and scarcely more than a dozen miles away, lay
the hazy outlines of the prize city of Metz. It was like a faint
mirage floating low on the distant horizon, daring men to seek
84

it out. An army corps brazen enough and of sufficiently des
perate courage might drive straight to it, cut the great lines of
communication behind the German front and possibly bring
the war to a dramatic close. These American officers were quite
willing to make a try.

But instead, MacArthur and his brigade were ordered to take
over the division's front and organize quickly a sturdy line of
defense. Two weeks later the 84th was relieved by its sister
brigade, and MacArthur and his Iowa and Alabama boys along
with the other units attached to his outfit settled down in the
rear areas to rest and recoup.

It was October i when the Rainbow moved out toward the
vast, shifting battlefield along the 4O-mile American front of
the Meuse-Argonne. Since September 25 the greatest offensive
battle that American troops had ever fought was thundering
and roaring ahead. At the start 7 full American divisions were
in the front line, and before the battle was over a total of 27
U. S. divisions were engaged. No less than a million Americans
would win the right to wear the battle star of this final Meuse-
Argonne offensive. A successful break-through to Sedan on the
Meuse meant the penetration of the great Hindenburg Line
and the probable defeat of the Boche.

Five days after the rested Rainbow began its march for
ward its units crossed into the battle area, slithering and
slipping over the greasy roads and trails, through dripping
patches of forests and battered little towns toward the fighting.
For nearly a week its men lay soaked and half-frozen in the
crowded, muddy woods of Montfaucon, well within the cap*
tured territory.

Then on the late afternoon of October 11, they slowly
trudged northward over the blasted roads under intermittent
shelling, and on midnight of the following day they relieved
the completely exhausted ist Division.

These fortified hills and dangerous woods formed the last of
the mighty German defenses in the Argonne. Here was a key
part of the final Hindenburg Line, locally known as the Kriem-
hilde Stellung. It had defied and broken the back of the mag
nificent ist Division. Major General Charles P. Summerall had
fought his splendid outfit with courage and determination, but

85

deep trenches and endless wire and uncountable enemy can
non and hidden machine guns that spurted streams of hot steel
from nowhere were too much for the stoutest of hearts and the
bravest of souls.

For his superb leadership Summerall had been rewarded
with the V Corps, but the ist Division had battered itself half
to death, and now the Rainbow must take up where it had left
off.

MacArthur, often alone, carefully surveyed the desolate and
forbidding country that his brigade must fight over. There
were rolling hills, partly wooded, with valleys of death between
the endless folds of the ridges, and mist and cold and danger
were everywhere. He seemed to have a sixth sense when shell
fire would lift for a short period and he could hurry on foot
across some open bit of country or down some dangerous slope.
Squalls of gis and shellfire broke like puffs of wind off shore.

Toward the end of his first day of reconnaissance he was
caught squarely in a poison gas attack and made his way back
to his C.P. with difficulty. He would carry no gas mask and
wear no steel helmet. It was sheer recklessness but it was also a
gesture of defiance to the enemy that helped build morale in
his own troops, even though it was against definite orders.

This time his gas wound was far worse than the one on the
Lorraine front. Major Wolf, his adjutant, feared that the war
was over for him. But MacArthur stubbornly refused to be
hospitalized.

With uncanny intuition he saw that the position on the
right of his brigade line, which Iowa's i68th Infantry must oc
cupy this night for its jump-off at dawn, was actually a kilome
ter and a half within Boche-held country. This would put it
squarely on the line where the supporting American artillery
would lay down its preliminary barrage.

MacArthur was violently ill, but there was no moment to
lose if the mistake was to be corrected in time. He ordered
Wolf to contact corps headquarters immediately and report the
ghastly error. At dawn MacArthur left his C.P. and on foot
visited the commanders of the advance battalions of his two
regiments and checked on the new dispositions he had ordered.

On his right were the splendid fighters of the gand Divi-
86

sion from Wisconsin and Michigan, who had batttled alongside
the Rainbowers on the slopes of the Ourcq. On his left were
the stalwarts of the New York and Ohio regiments of the
Rainbow. It was a magnificent team.

For the next two days, October 14 and 15, little units of
American soldiers, well-spaced and thoroughly experienced,
crawled and sneaked and side-slipped from one bit of cover to
another. Suddenly they would close in to form squads and pla
toons for a swift envelopment that would gain them a toe-hold
on some slope or deadly hill notched with machine-gun im-
placements.

By nightfall of the first day Hill 288 was in the hands of
the Iowa men. The following day Hill 242 fell, and then the
fortified Tuilerie Farm. Every foot of the front areas was dan
gerous and uncertain. A burst of machine-gun fire would sud
denly break the silence, and now and again a battery of enemy
775 would open up on some valley road, or hidden mortars
would shell a wooded slope that was sheltering for the moment
an advancing platoon. Death, blind and remorseless, whistled
and sang its way through the cold mists.

Early one morning Lincoln Eyre, the tall, distinguished cor
respondent of the New York World, with a war reporter of the
Chicago Tribune [the author] arrived at MacArthur's head
quarters. At that very moment the General and Wolf with a
soldier or two were approaching the battered old farmhouse
from the direction of the front. The General wore a barracks
cap and black West Point sweater, and his shoes and puttees
were muddy and wet. It was obvious that he was returning from
a private reconnaissance of his own.

With the greetings over the little party moved toward the
stone building. Someone whispered that MacArthur had had a
close call. He had run into one of his own platoons stalking a
hidden machine-gun nest off to the left. He was giving the men
his benediction when an enemy bullet clipped the left sleeve
of his sweater. The Tribune correspondent now hurried along
side the General and pointed toward the ravelled sleeve.

"When did brigadier generals get to be expendable?" he
questioned.

MacArthur grinned a little sheepishly. Finally he answered:

"Well, there are times when even general officers have to be
expendable. Come on inside and we'll rustle some coffee."

His people were making progress but there still remained
the deadliest task of all — the Cote de Chatillon. Dominating
the whole scene lay this key obstacle, the entrenched Hill of
Chatillon, heavily wired, its machine guns enfilading the
slopes and valleys surrounding it.

Early the night before, runners from captured Hill 242 had
brought word to MacArthur that a patrol had discovered that
the deep belt of wire entanglements around the lower slopes of
the Cote de Chatillon dribbled out half-way around its north
western base. With men from Alabama and Iowa planted on
its flanks, MacArthur now saw his chance. He directed that
during the night all the heavy machine guns in his brigade
be concentrated for a long barrage, while artillery battalions
would open with their heaviest possible fire. He knew, how
ever, that observation would be most difficult in the hazy mist
of the morning.

It was midnight and raining when MacArthur finished draw
ing up his plans for the attack. Suddenly the door of his ad
vanced C.P. opened and General Summerall, V Corps com
mander, entered the candle-lit room. He was haggard and
muddy and tired. A plate of cold food and a mess cup of steam
ing black coffee was set out for him. Finished, he pushed back
from the rough table.

His voice was low as he spoke directly to the brigade com
mander. "You will give me Cote de Chatillon tomorrow or
turn in a report of 5,000 casualties."

MacArthur brought his heels together. "This brigade will
capture C6te de Chatillon tomorrow, sir, or you can report ev
ery man in it as a casualty. And at the top of the list will be the
name of the brigade commander."

Tears came to the eyes of the grizzled old soldier. He seemed
stunned and uttered no word. He had served under Douglas
MacArthur's warrior father. It had taken an iron will on his
part to order the attack that might bring death to hundreds
and even to the son of his dear friend Arthur MacArthur. War
was a grim and ugly business.
88

As silently as he entered, he opened the door and stepped
out into the black night.

At dawn MacArmur, still ill and shaken from his gas wound,
moved out for the final word with his battalion commanders.
At 5:30 he watched the First Battalion of the i68th Iowa move
out from the Tuilerie Farm. Some time later a provisional bat
talion of the iGyth Alabama stalked stealthily to the right
toward the opening in the wire.

And now the two battalions moved cautiously forward
through the mist, while a curtain of fire was set down ahead of
them. Like the arms of a great pincer the attackers closed in
on both sides of the fortified hill that for days had defied the
best that the Americans had to throw against it.

Suddenly German defenders in their trenches and nests
found men in khaki among them — hard, pinched-cheeked, dirty
men, with bloodshot eyes and cold steel in their hearts. And
death came swiftly to these Bodies, and the key to victory be
longed to the soldiers from a far-away land.

Thus fell the Cote de Chatillon. MacArthur in later years
could never even mention the name without visible emotion.

That night the least chewed-up battalions of the 84th Brigade
took over the front line positions that they had won at such
cost. For MacArthur's men had been forced to pay a heavy
price for the victory. B and C Companies of the Iowa regiment
welded together and commanded by a lieutenant could muster
only 70 men out of their original 500. The entire ist Battalion
had only 300 men and 6 officers remaining. In three days the
i68th Iowa Regiment alone had lost 1,150 men and 25 offi
cers.

The toughest nut of the Kriemhilde Stellung was cracked,
but the Rainbow must now step aside and watch the 2nd Di
vision with its deathless Marine Brigade step in and take up

89

the pursuit. There was fighting enough and honor enough for
all

Ten days after the C6te de Chatillon fell, and while the di
vision replaced its terrible losses, it was transferred from Sum-
meralFs V Corps. That same cold, muggy day Summerall, the
splendid old soldier, who was universally recognized as one of
the finest battle commanders in France, wrote a formal letter
to the commander of the 4%nd Division. It had to do princi
pally with the exploits of the 84th Brigade, and copies eventu
ally would go forward to the great G.H.Q. of the American Ex
peditionary Force. He wrote:

This Brigade [the 84th], under the command of Brigadier Gen
eral Douglas MacArthur, has manifested the highest soldierly
qualities and has rendered service of the greatest value during
the present operations. With a dash, courage and a fighting spirit
worthy of the best traditions of the American Army, this Brigade
carried by assault the strongly fortified Hill 228 on the Kriem-
hilde Stellung and unceasingly pressed its advance until it cap
tured the Tuilerie Ferme and the Bois de Chatillon, thus placing
itself at least a kilometer beyond the enemy's strong line of re
sistance. During this advance the enemy fought with unusual
determination with a first class division and in many instances
resorted to hand to hand fighting when our troops approached
his rear. — The conduct of this brigade has reflected honor upon
the Division, the Army and the States from which the Regiments
came.

The final ten days before the Armistice of November 1 1 were
in the nature of a weird and almost unearthly anti-climax.

After the brief but utterly exhausting period spent in break
ing through the last Hindenburg Line, the 42nd Division was
permitted to recoup itself. It was now attached to I Corps and
ordered to drive with little short of abandon toward the great
German rail center of Sedan — where 48 years before the French
armies of Napoleon III had suffered complete defeat.

So it was that across the cold and miserable country, still
90

held by stubborn pockets of German resistance, the two infan
try brigades, covered by their artillery trailing close behind,
slogged and fought their way toward Sedan and the Meuse
river. There was much sickness and exhaustion, and the battle
casualties continued to mount.

Almost as deadly to morale as the hidden enemy fire were
the latrine rumors of an early peace. Added to freezing nights
in the open and the pinched rations, was the factor of general
confusion and uncertainty. At times the fighting seemed to be
almost automatic.

Across the wide front and straddling both sides of the Meuse
river, the American divisions, now more or less on their own,
lunged ahead against a still obstinate enemy. On the afternoon
of November 5 General Fox Conner, G-g of Pershing's G.H.Q.,
drove to Lt. General Hunter Liggett's First Army Headquar
ters with the information that he had just received a telephone
call from General Pershing indicating that he wanted the First
Army, with its I and V Corps, to capture Sedan.

Here, at the First Army, miles to the rear of even the two
corps headquarters, Colonel George C. Marshall, now assistant
chief of staff and G-3 — chief of the operations section — of the
First Army, wrote out the strange order, under the prompting
of General Fox Conner. But the junior officer, Marshall, was in
no way to be held responsible for the subsequent happenings.
Since Lt. General Liggett was absent, the order was held up
until the arrival of Brigadier General Hugh A. Drum, the
chief of staff of the First Army. It was dispatched sometime
that evening, but there was bitter night patrol fighting on out
ahead, and nothing was done at the two corps headquarters un
til the following day. The order read:

Memorandum for Commanding Generals, I Corps

V Corps
Subject: Message from the Commander-in-Chief

1. General Pershing desires that the honor of entering Sedan
should fall to the First American Army. He has every confidence
that the troops of the ist Corps, assisted by the 5th Corps, will
enable him to realize this desire.

2. In transmitting the foregoing message, your attention is in-

91

vited to the favorable opportunity now existing, for pressing our
advantage throughout the night. Boundaries will not be con
sidered binding.

By command of Lieutenant General Liggett
Official:
G. C. Marshall,
A. C. of S., G-3

Largely as a result of the intemperate final sentence in the
order — "Boundaries will not be considered binding" — there
now occurred one of those unforeseen and bitter incidents that
sometimes happen. In these rare instances officers and men,
exhausted, confused and yet inspired by the pride and courage
of their individual outfit, are somehow able to call on unknown
reserves of endurance to drive them on to ends so ambitious
that they border on folly.

Briefly, the position on the morning of November 6 was
about as follows: The French 40th Division held the left of an
advancing American line that, reading from left to the right,
comprised the 4^nd and 77th U. S. Divisions of the I Corps,
commanded by General Joseph T. Dickman; then on the right
the ist, snd, and 8gth Divisions of the V Corps under General
SummeralL The 4$nd Division at this moment possibly faced
the toughest enemy resistance on its front of any of the several
divisions in this area. It was nearest to Sedan.

At midday of November 6 General Summerall, V Corps
commander, strode into the ist Division's C.P,, bringing with
him the request made by Pershing. General Frank Parker, the
able and driving commander of the ist Division, immediately
set his tired but game regiments into motion. As well as any
one in the whole A.E.F. he knew Pershing's great pride in the
ist. The concluding sentence in the order, Boundaries will not
be considered binding, gave the division commander all the
latitude anyone could ask.

Immediately General Parker ordered his division to drive
in five columns toward the prize city. Luckily the 77th es
caped most of the galling humiliation of having the columns of
another division, without definite authority, march straight
through its own area. To the Rainbow, however, the sudden
92

intrusion of the ist Division troops cutting across its positions
brought a flaring of temper and pride that narrowly missed
having tragic consequences.

By nightfall of this memorable November 6 the Rainbow's
84th Brigade found itself stretched out along high ridges that
overlooked the Meuse river, with the city of Sedan only a few
miles ahead. Late that afternoon MacArthur had received the
order to push the final drive toward the prize, regardless of the
night march involved and without consideration for the ex
hausted condition of his men. He knew there was a strong force
of the enemy directly between him and the river, and he would
accept no part in the losses that a night advance would cause.
He dispatched Major Wolf to the Division C.P., explaining the
situation and asking permission not to move until early the fol
lowing morning. He then lay down in the hope of gaining a
little sleep.

Sometime after midnight he was awakened by his adjutant
accompanied by a colonel of the staff of the ist Division, who
explained that despite the unknown dangers of the night, the
elements of the ist were now crowding the roads of Mac-
Arthur's area, and that as a result of the precipitate drive the
advancing i6th and i8th Infantry Regiments of the ist had
overrun their own wagons and supply trucks and were com
pletely out of food.

MacArthur ordered that his own scanty rations be divided
with the brother regiments. Then in the cold and hazy uncer
tainty of the pre-dawn he decided that he must personally warn
his own troops of possible collision. He feared that the unortho
dox relaxing of division boundaries might lead to bloodshed.
In the confusion of battle, Americans might well fire into un
identified American columns which had crossed division lines.
He had best do this important job himself, and he started off
with Wolf.

Morning was just breaking when the two officers were sud
denly surrounded by a strong patrol of American soldiers. A
young lieutenant, with his pistol cocked, declared them cap
tives. His suspicions had been aroused by the odd barracks cap
MacArthur was wearing and the long woolen muffler wrapped

93

round his neck; the lieutenant and his men had been warned
of possible spies wearing American uniforms, and their ex
hausted nerves inclined to make them trigger-happy.

Quietly the General explained the identity of himself and
his adjutant. The -young officer answered that he belonged to
the i6th Infantry of the ist Division. He had his orders, and
he must take the two officers back to his own battalion com
mander. At that moment MacArthur saw emerging through the
mist and far down the slope a column that almost certainly was
made up of his own troops. He suggested his captors take him
there, and when they reached the heavy patrol of the 42nd,
the lieutenant saluted, apologized a little awkwardly and went
his way.

A day later General Liggett, the First Army commander,
wisely untangled the dangerous snarl by angrily ordering the
ist Division out of the Rainbow's area. To the French Army
rightfully went the honor of recapturing Sedan, and thus at
least partially avenging the great military humiliation it had
suffered there so many years before.

So in the end MacArthur and his weary men and the rest of
the exhausted 42nd Division reversed their direction, began a
side-slip to the rear and east and headed for the pontoon
bridges that had been flung across the Meuse. It took all of
MacArthur's leadership to keep his tired and ragged foot
sloggers in hand. The fine razor's edge of their discipline and
pride had been nicked and dulled by the rumors of peace
and the subsequent feeling that they had been cheated of the
honor of capturing Sedan.

Around 9 o'clock on the evening of November 10 MacArthur
came into his temporary C.P. and heard the news that the for
mal armistice was set for 11 o'clock the following morning.
The division was now close to Buzancy, and not far away from
the scene of one of its greatest victories. MacArthur went on
foot from one outfit to another carrying the news that appar
ently the war was over. But the men were so tired that their
tide of emotion had long ago spent itself.

That night he found 60 wounded Americans who had been
prisoners of the Germans and with some 200 wounded Boche
had been housed in a makeshift hospital. They all had been
94

hastily abandoned when the retreating enemy was forced out
of the area.

MacArthur and his exhausted troops welcomed the armis
tice but it seemed to come as an anti-climax. In his own heart
there was no exaltation, only compassion. He had not thought
it would be this way on the eve of the final victory for which
he and his men had fought so valiantly.

Major General Menoher had now been rewarded by receiving
command of a corps. For the next two weeks, while the divi
sion fought through the final days and began its advance into
Germany, MacArthur, as the senior officer present, commanded
the division. He showed no outward sign of his disappointment
that he had not been made a major general. He knew that both
his old division commander, General Menoher, and his former
corps commander, General Summerall, had made every possi
ble effort to have him promoted.

The marching columns had barely reached Luxembourg
when MacArthur received a personal letter that had arrived in
the carrier pouch from G.H.Q. at Chaumont. It read:

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

(Personal) France, Nov. 29., 1918

My dear General MacArthur:

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that on Oct. 17, I
recommended you for promotion to the grade of Major General,
basing my recommendation upon the efficiency of your service
with the American Expeditionary Force.

The War Department discontinued all promotions of General
Officers after the signing of the Armistice, and I regret that you
will not therefor receive the deserved recognition of your excel
lent services.

Sincerely yours,

(Signed) John ]. Pershing

There were additional evidences of the regard of his superi
ors for MacArthur. The dead had hardly been buried in front
of the Cote de Chatillon, near the end of October, when the

95

Rainbow's commander, Major General Menoher, dispatched a
letter to his West Point classmate, the Commander-in-Ghief of
the American Armies, on the subject of the "Distinguished Serv
ices of Brigadier General MacArthur."

It is a long document, covering more than 2,000 words, and
there is a fire and passion about it. It began:

I do not feel that my duty with the 42nd Division has been com
pleted and that I am free to assume another command without
recording the services rendered by the former Chief of Staff and
one of the present infantry brigade commanders of the Division,
General Douglas MacArthur, throughout the period during which
I commanded the 42 nd Division, These services, rendered con
stantly, for over a year, and in the large part amidst active opera
tions in the field, have been so soundly, brilliantly and loyally
performed that in the recognition of them I see only a fair ap
praisal of the example of energy, courage and efficiency which
General MacArthur has set to the 42nd Division and to our entire
Army in France. The contributions made to our military estab
lishment by this general officer while under my command have
already had far-reaching effects. He has stood for the actual phys
ical command of large bodies of troops in battle, not of a day but
of days' duration, and I believe has actually commanded larger
bodies of troops on the battle line than any other officer in our
Army, with, in each instance, conspicuous success. He has de
veloped, combined and applied the use of the infantry and cor
related arms with an effect upon the enemy, a husbandry of his
own forces and means and a resourcefulness which no other com
mander in the field has. . . .

For his field leadership, generalcy and determination during
three days of constant combat (in front of the C6te de Chatillon),
I was happy to recommend to you for a second time that he be
made a Major General, which recommendation the Corps Com
mander, General Summerall, entirely concurred in and approved.
For his gallantry and determination in the field, though again
suffering from gas poisoning, I recommended General MacArthur
for a palm of the Distinguished Service Cross, which action Gen
eral Summerall also endorsed with his approval. . . .

This record represents the unremitting endeavor of a very bril
liant and gifted officer who has, after more than a year's full serv
ice in France without a day apart from his division or his com
mand, and although twice wounded in action, filled each day

with a loyal and intelligent application to duty such as is, among
officers in the field and in actual contact with battle, without
parallel in our Army. . . /'

General Menoher's extraordinary letter of commendation
bore the date of October 30. The war ended twelve days later.
Five days after the signing of the Armistice an officer reported
at the Rainbow's headquarters with personal orders to super
vise a special board to consider recommendations for the Medal
of Honor within the division.

There was little time to do anything about the matter until
the division was settled in its pleasant billets along the Rhine.
Shortly the board of awards was selected by the division head
quarters, and Major Walter Wolf was made recorder.

Among a number of the younger officers there was a deter
mined feeling that their former chief of staff and present
commander of the 84th Brigade must not be overlooked. On
December 17 the special board sent in its recommendation of
nine names for the Medal of Honor. No. i on the list was Brig
adier General Douglas MacArthur.

It was a month later when the final report from Army Head
quarters reached the Rainbow. It read:

1. Recommendations for the award of the Medal of Honor to
the following member of your Command are disapproved.

Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur
[2 additional names]

2. The acts recited in these cases are judged not to meet the
standard set for the award of the Medal of Honor.

By command of General Pershing^

/. A. Ulio
Adjutant General

The members of the special board of awards for the division
were shocked and embittered. Most of them had heard rumors
of the enmity against General MacArthur that was said to have
existed on the part of certain senior members of Pershing's
G.H.Q. staff. To cross out the No. i name on its carefully se
lected list, when each member of the division's board of awards
personally knew of numerous incidents of his leadership
"above and beyond the call of duty/' seemed to reflect such a

97

feeling of personal hostility that the board presented a written
protest. But it was of no avail.

It was the second time that Douglas MacArthur had seemingly
won and yet been denied his country's highest award for valor.

April 11, 1919, saw the first shipload of men of the famed
42nd pulling out from Brest. The last units left France on
the i8th — eighteen months to a day from the date of the de
parture of the first convoy of the division from Hoboken.

It was the end of the Rainbow.

7
BACK TO WEST POINT

MacArthur was back in Washington but a few days when Gen
eral Peyton C. March, Chief of Staff, sent for him.

March, abrupt, incisive and highly intelligent, had, it will be
remembered, served in the Philippines in 1899 as a sort of
super-aide to General Arthur MacArthur. At a farewell dinner
to his staff and his senior officers in Malacafian, Palace in June
1901, General MacArthur, then military governor of the Is
lands, singled out March and J. Franklin Bell as the two offi
cers most likely to reach the top of their profession. In 1906
Bell became Chief of Staff of the newly reorganized U. S.
Army; and in 1918 Secretary of War Baker brought March
back from France, where he had been Pershing's chief of artil
lery, and made him Army Chief of Staff.

On this May day in 1919 when MacArthur, a temporary
brigadier general, reported to the Chief of Staff's office, Gen
eral March told him that he would make him superintendent
of West Point on condition that MacArthur approved of cer
tain ideas that March wished to be carried out. When March at
98

20 had entered West Point in 1883, he was already a gradu
ate of Lafayette College, so that much of the military acad
emy's scholastic work had not been difficult for him.

"West Point is 40 years behind the times/' he bluntly told
MacArthur.

Then he went on to explain that because the war's demand
for officers had reduced the 4-year course to a single year, much
of the spirit of the fine, old Academy had been lost. A complete
job of rehabilitation was necessary. The present outlook was
that Congress would authorize a g-year course, and plans would
have to be made with that goal in view. Among other changes
March demanded that all physical hazing be stopped.

MacArthur promptly answered that he would be very happy
to take on the difficult assignment. March suggested that he
consider Lt. Colonel Robert M, Danford, Field Artillery, for
his commandant. Colonel Danford, who came from the tiny
river town of New Boston, Illinois, on the Mississippi, had lit
erally left the plow to enter West Point and an army career.
He had graduated in 1904, and MacArthur remembered him
well and favorably from the three years they had been fellow
cadets.

A talk with Danford proved to MacArthur that they saw eye
to eye regarding the need of modernizing the Academy from
top to bottom, including the abolishment of hazing. To reor
ganize the scholastic side alone would be a long and hard fight
that would bring out the opposition of certain high-ranking
members of the permanent academic staff, as well as that of
many older officers and certain elements in Congress.

On June 12 MacArthur settled his mother in the comforta
ble quarters at West Point that had been built almost a hun
dred years before for Superintendent Thayer. During the war
period Mrs. MacArthur had been living with her older son's
family at the naval base in San Diego, and it would be pleasant
for her to be mistress of this distinctive home.

MacArthur's third annual report as superintendent con
tains an accurate description of the problems he faced:

When I assumed command on June 12, 1919, I found there
two classes in the Academy, each of them under instruction less

99

than a year. It is no exaggeration to describe conditions with
respect to the course of training at that moment as chaotic.

Orders had been issued to prepare the first of the two Fourth
Classes for graduation in 1920, and the second in 1921. These
orders were modified in May, 1919, by changing the curriculum
to a three-year basis for graduation.

But the Act making appropriations for the fiscal year ending
July 30, 1921, was passed, carrying the provision that the course
of instruction should be four years. Thus within a single year,
preparation had to be made for three different courses of training
preparatory for graduation at different periods.

This uncertainty with respect to the curriculum was not the
only reason for the chaotic conditions. The morale of the cadet
body was low. Following the armistice, 24 cadets resigned from
the Fourth Class A (entered in June, 1918) — and 85 from the
Fourth Class B (entered in November). The education qualifica
tions for admission had been largely discarded in the case of
cadets who entered in November, 1918, and 73 failed in the spring
tests.

The traditional disciplinary system, so largely built around the
prestige and influence of the upperclassmen, was impossible in a
situation where there were no upperclassmen. Cadet officers had
never known the example of cadet officers before them, and the
body of the Corps had a most imperfect idea of the standards of
bearing and conduct which have been characteristic of the cadet
for over a century. The old West Point could not have been rec
ognized in the institution as it appeared in June 1919. It had
gone; it had to be replaced.

We had the buildings and equipment for a great military in
stitution; we had the traditions of the old West Point implanted
in the character of its graduates; we had the experience of the
World War to point the way; we had the assurance of loyal and
devoted service from the fine corps of officers on duty here; and
we had a point of departure in the legal establishment of a four-
year course of study and training. Our problem was upon these
foundations and with these guides and aids to build a new West
Point which should continue the fine tradition of the old and
should give the most thorough preparation of officer personnel
for the next possible future war.

All that first summer of 1919 the new superintendent sat
with the Academic Board and thrashed out the scores of prob-
100

lems that had to do with a complete redrafting and moderniz
ing of the various courses. General March had not exaggerated
when he had called West Point 40 years behind the times.
At once MacArthur met considerable opposition from several
older men on the faculty who looked upon him as only a bril
liant upstart and outsider. For some weeks MacArthur quietly
endured their constant opposition. One of the senior academic
colonels especially irritated him by his sniping tactics of con
tinued obstruction. At the opening of one particular session
MacArthur had barely finished outlining a certain new idea
when the obstreperous colonel jumped to his feet and began
his objections. It was a little more than MacArthur could stand.

"Sit down, sir!" he roared, "I'm talking!" And then he gave
his offending subordinate a dressing-down the like of which the
Academic Board conference room had never before witnessed.

A number of years later when MacArthur was Military Ad
visor to the President of the Philippine Commonwealth, he
outlined some of his original ideas in answer to a letter from a
young captain who had just been appointed assistant professor
in the English Department at West Point. Time apparently
had little changed the fundamental conception he had initiated
some years before.

You were good enough to ask my opinion with reference to
the objectives of the English Course at West Point. It is unques
tionably to so train the cadet that he can clearly and fucidly
present his basic thoughts and ideas. It is not the mission of the
English Course to create or control those ideas, but it is its clear
function to provide him with the medium through which he can
present his views in an intelligent and even forcible manner. No
man can hope to rise to distinction who cannot do this and no
man, however humble his position, should fail to be able to do
so. It is the very medium in which modern civilization lives. It is
almost like the air you breathe. Without it a man may have the
finest judgment in the world, he may be even wise as Solomon,
and yet his influence will be practically negligible.

The accomplishment of such a purpose is not confined to
proper grammatical, rhetorical or phonetical grouping of words
into sentences and paragraphs. There must be the logical con
nection between the thought in a man's brain and the ability to

101

present it in clear language. How to accomplish this is the de
tailed duty of your new department.

When I was Superintendent I outlined at much greater length
than this letter what I expected to accomplish from the English
Department and left the ways and means to that department.
The success attained did not even approximate to what I had
in mind and I have always felt that there was great room for
ingenuity and constructive effort along those lines at West Point.
In many ways I regard it as the most important department there
and certainly if it could fulfill the objective I have named above,
it would be beyond doubt the most useful. The pen is still
mightier than the sword.

The human side was only one factor in the many problems
that MacArthur faced. He was determined to end the Acad
emy's antiquated attitude toward the cadets and particularly
the upperclassman. As swiftly as he could he laid down the rule
that the cadets of the three top classes must be treated as re
sponsible young men. He allowed them to smoke pipes and
cigars in their rooms. If their scholastic grades were good, he
permitted them week-end leaves, and permitted each cadet $5 a
week from his pay and allowances.

The chaplain at West Point at the time was a tall, slender,
tolerant divine who had been a three-letter man at the Uni
versity of the South, at Sewanee, Tenn., where he had gained
the nickname of Buck; his family name was Wheat. He was
chaplain, athlete and warm human being.

The new superintendent found Buck Wheat and his high
enthusiasm for various sports to his exact liking. When it came
time for spring baseball practice and the chaplain showed what
a superb first baseman he was, the General wanted to make
him baseball coach. Wheat begged off in favor of an old-time
professional, but he was- on hand every afternoon for practice.

For a hundred years the Academy had followed a strict cus
tom for Sunday observance. After compulsory chapel and noon
dinner, cadets might gather quietly in one another's rooms or
take walks, but they must play no games or in any possible
xvay desecrate the Sabbath. Chaplain Wheat watched the boys
wistfully looking out of their barracks windows or listlessly
102

strolling about the post, and finally he went to the new super
intendent and laid out his proposal:

Why not permit the cadets to practice ball or tennis or golf
on Sunday afternoon, even using the Plain for their quiet ex
ercise? As chaplain he would gladly play with them, and thus
soften any personal criticism of the cadets by religious funda
mentalists.

MacArthur pushed back his chair and started walking up
and down his office. It was a grand idea, he insisted. Get the
cadets out of their rooms and into the air and under the blue
sky. The better the day the better the deed. He approved
100%. Go to it!

Sure enough, letters of disapproval appeared in the New
York papers and a number of complaints went to the War De
partment, but neither the superintendent nor the chaplain
wavered.

MacArthur never lost his affection for Buck Wheat, who,
after serving eight years as chaplain at West Point, became
head of the English Department there and retired in the early
4os as a full colonel in the Regular Army. For many years one
of MacArthur's favorite stories had to do with the chaplain's
prowess in various fields of sport. At the Academy there were
several Officer Clubs that revolved around such diverse fields as
tennis, golf and skeet shooting. At the close of the special sea
son of each sport an informal gathering of the club members
took place and the superintendent was asked in to award the
silver cups.

Toward the end of MacArthur's tour he was invited to at
tend the last meeting of the Skeet Club, at which the champion
ship shoot was to be held. In the final elimination only two
officers and Chaplain Wheat were still in the running for the
cup. Major Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., class of 1908, and Cap
tain Omar Bradley, class of 1915, each broke 24 out of a possi
ble 25. Wheat tied the score, so that a shoot-off was necessary.

Again Buckner and Bradley each broke 24 clay pigeons.
Wheat, using an old double-barrel hammer gun that was prac
tically a family heirloom, made a perfect score. It was a mag
nificent display of nerve and perfect coordination.

103

After the proper toasts were made General Mac Arthur
stepped up to present the silver cup. His sly sense of humor
and his magnetic personality were at their best.

"Chaplain Wheat/' he began slowly, "sometime this fall I
presented you with a cup as the champion golfer in the Officer
Corps here at the Point. A little later I had the honor of
handing you the championship cup as the best tennis player
among the officers at the Academy. We were all proud of you
and your records.

"And today I am presenting you this silver cup for being the
finest skeet shooter at West Point. But in all sincerity and as
your true friend, I must warn you that you have now gone just
a little too far. My brother officers here do not particularly
mind your winning the championship cups in tennis and golf,
bnt when you presume to win against the Army in a matter of
shooting, which is its peculiar field, then, sir, I must tell you
with complete frankness that you have gone just a little too
far."

The chaplain's only concern regarding the superintendent
was that he never attended chapel, despite the fact that it was
evident that MacArthur possessed a deep pool of religious mys
ticism. Toward the end of his three-year tour, the superintend
ent, however, was now and again prevailed upon to attend the
beautiful chapel services, there to listen to the unforgettable
organ music of Fritz Mayer and an inspiring talk by Chaplain
Wheat.

One of the many MacArthur innovations was intramural ath
letics, which required every cadet to take part in some inter-
class sport. With this went a whole new conception of the need
for more physical training. Another important change followed
the order that most of the summer training of the upper classes
should be done at Camp Dix or other camps where there were
regular units of the Army. Quietly MacArthur put in requisi
tions for every new type of army gun, weapon and transport,
until he had at West Point the equipment for a full army bri
gade.

Colonel Danford, the commandant, handled personally all of
the direct contact with the cadets, but he and the superintend-
104

ent always worked in harmony. They both were determined to
wipe out the last vestiges of the old custom of exercising or
physical hazing. As a cadet Colonel Danford had not been
severely hazed, but MacArthur had not forgotten the unreason
able cruelty of his own experience. Neither officer had associated
himself with the hazing' of plebes during his upperclass years,
and they were equally determined now to tear out root and
branch the unwarranted and sometimes brutal cadet tradition.

Early in the academic term that began in September 1920,
the Class of 1922 became involved in a rather weird chain of
incidents. A certain obnoxious and unpopular cadet had been
"braced" (made to stand at rigid attention) and harmlessly
"crawled" by a third classman. He had immediately fled to the
commandant's office with a sorry tale, in which he claimed that
he had been so unnerved by hazing that he was failing in his
academic courses.

The upperclassman who had crawled him but not actually
hazed him physically was given a heavy slug of punishment,
and the squealing plebe was not dismissed for his scholastic
failure. The Corps was bitter against the plebe for breaking
the cadet code, and against the superintendent for permitting
the plebe to remain at the Academy, despite the fact that his
low grades called for his dismissal.

The unfortunate cadet continued his refusal to conform and
openly opposed the Corps. Finally in the summer of 1921,
when two of the four classes were transported to Fort Dix, the
resentment reached the boiling point.

The first captain at the time was a superior cadet named
George Olmsted, who stood No. 2 in scholastic rating in his
class. Special care was taken by his classmates to see that Olm
sted personally should have no part in or knowledge of the
subsequent events.

Late one night the First Class gathered in an unused com
pany barracks at Camp Dix. There in complete darkness it was
decided that a small and secret group chosen by the Corps
Honor Committee should handle the case of the offending
cadet. No names were spoken, so that if anyone present was
called up on the carpet he could answer that he could not posi-

tively identify any cadet who had a part in the proceedings.
Likewise, great care was taken that First Captain Olmsted was
not involved in any way.

A purse of money was raised, and in the middle of the night
the cadet to be railroaded was quietly taken from his barracks,
hustled off to the nearest railroad station, given the money for
expenses and a civilian suit and warned never again to show
his face around the Corps.

Shortly before this the commandant had left Fort Dix for
West Point, so that he was at the Academy when MacArthur
heard the news of the affair. The superintendent immediately
called in Colonel Danford.

"Get back to Dix as soon as you can and bust Olmsted,"
MacArthur ordered.

Danford returned at once to the army camp outside Trenton
and at mess call had the cadet adjutant read out the orders
reducing Olmsted to the ranks and appointing Cadet Charles J.
Barrett as first captain.

On giving the seemingly harsh order MacArthur had been
guided by the memories of his own sense of duty and responsi
bility when he had been first captain. If some such unfortunate
incident as this railroading had occurred during his time as
first captain, he would have personally accepted the full respon
sibility for any action the Corps might have taken, even though
he had had no knowledge or part in it. He saw no reason why
First Captain Olmsted should not do likewise.

Late that following spring, shortly before the Class was due
to graduate, MacArthur, touched by the manly and dignified
way that Olmsted had accepted the unhappy situation, made
him a cadet captain. The idea had first been suggested to the
commandant by Olmsted's company tactical officer, and Colo
nel Danford had passed it on to the superintendent.

It was a gesture that the Corps fully appreciated.

MacArthur's career was in friendly and generous hands in the
War Department as long as Newton D. Baker was Secretary of
War and General Peyton C. March was Chief of Staff. On Jan-
106

uary 20, 1920, he was made a permanent brigadier general, the
youngest in the Regular Army. Scores of older officers who had
enjoyed temporary high rank during the war and were now re
duced to their permanent grades were openly indignant. And
many officers of his own generation found the former tempo
rary stars on their shoulder straps replaced by the gold or sil
ver leaves of a major or lieutenant colonel. Only Hugh A.
Drum, of the many who were near MacArthur's age, was given
the permanent rank of a general officer. One of the officers
who had gained considerable reputation in the war and was
now reduced to a major on Pershing's staff was George C. Mar
shall.

When President Harding entered the White House on
March 4, 1921, the atmosphere surrounding the War Depart
ment at once changed notably as far as MacArthur was con
cerned. John W. Weeks replaced Newton D. Baker as Secre
tary of War, and John J. Pershing succeeded March as Chief
of Staff. March was not even permitted to finish out his cus
tomary four-year tour of duty.

The old Chaumont crowd from France now held down many
of the key desks in the War Department and General Staff.
Some of them brought to their new jobs their old resentment
against MacArthur, now aggravated by the fact that a number
of them had lost their war grades and that MacArthur now
ranked them. They had been G.H.Q. men in the war and were
still Pershing men, and they were envious of the single star that
MacArthur wore.

But he had plenty to worry about in the great shift of West
Point from a hide-bound military school disrupted by the war
to a modern college. His own life continued to be as austere
and restricted as it had been. Most of his evenings were spent
alone in his study in the superintendent's rambling old house.
He had started pretty much as a lone wolf, and as a lone wolf
he would continue.

In an outburst of confidence he once said to Colonel Danford,
"When a man gets to be a general officer, he has no friends."

107

MacArthur's routine at West Point was unique. He arrived at
his office around 10:30 each morning. After clearing his desk of
mail and such items as presented themselves, he took care of
the appointments that were scheduled. Around 12:00 he went
to his quarters, ate lunch and usually took a siesta. Then he
returned to his office, finished off any work or appointments
that were left over, and if it was the football or baseball sea
son, he would hustle over to the athletic field and watch the
practice.

While football captured his most intense interest, the fact
that he had played on the West Point baseball team gave him a
peculiar and abiding affection for that game. During the years
immediately after the armistice the Academy suffered from a
succession of poor baseball teams. For three years straight the
Cadets had lost to the Midshipmen and when May 21, 1921,
rolled around and the Army won 8 to 7 over the Navy, every
West Pointer from the superintendent to the lowliest plebe felt
a hilarious joy.

That night during supper word quietly passed through the
Corps that there would be a midnight shirt-tail parade despite
the most stringent regulations against such action. Promptly at
midnight the Corps gathered on the Plain, snake-danced past
the superintendent's and commandant's quarters and on to the
site of old Fort Clinton. Here guards were placed and while a
great bonfire blazed, musical instruments miraculously ap
peared, and a celebration exploded that could be heard for
miles up and down the river.

Major Charles Bonesteel was officer in charge that night, and
when he discovered the cadet sentinels, he assured them that
he was not making a report but simply wanted to join in the
fun. So it was that instead of ordering the cadets to their bar
racks and reporting the ringleaders, he took part in the celebra
tion and along with the captain of the ball team made a
rip-roaring victory speech. When the steam had blown off and
dawn began to show, the cadets quietly returned to their
rooms.

Later that morning when the commandant dropped in at the
108

Arthur greeted him with a broad grin.

"Had quite a party last night, didn't you, John?" MacArthu;
said, addressing the commandant by his cadet nickname.

"Yes, sir/' Danford answered, not quite certain how thing
would turn out.

"How many did you 'skin,' John?"

"Not a damn one, General."

MacArthur hit the desk with the heels of both hands
"Good!" he pronounced. "You know, John, I could hardly
keep from going out there myself."

Now and again his driver would motor him to New York
for some special dinner or theatre party. As he returned late one
night from an evening in the city, and his car was slowl)
making its way along the narrow, winding roads on the wesi
bank of the Hudson, a man stepped out from a clump of
woods and with a flashlight waved the automobile to a stop,
Suddenly he drew a pistol and covered the driver and the Gen
eral.

"Hand over your money!" he ordered, his flash half-blinding
the two men in the car.

"Hold up, huh?" MacArthur questioned.

He was told to dig up his purse and get busy about it. Mac-
Arthur was deliberate in his answer.

"You don't get it as easy as that," he said calmly. "I've got
around $40 in my purse, but you'll have to whip me to get it.
I'm coming out of this car, and I'll fight you for it."

The stick-up man waved his pistol and threatened to shoot.
MacArthur shook his head.

"Sure you can shoot me," he went on. "But if you do they'll
run you down and you'll fry in the Big House down below.
Put up that gun, and I'll come out and fight you fair and
square for my purse."

Almost as an afterthought he added: "My name is MacAr
thur, and I live — "

The man let down the hammer of his gun. "My God! why
didn't you tell me that in the first place! . . . Why, I was in
the Rainbow. I was a sergeant in Wild Bill Donovan's outfit.
Why, General, I'm sorry. I apologize."

109

MacArthur ordered his chauffeur to drive on. When he ar
rived at West Point he made no effort to notify the State Po-
Hce.

Within General Pershing's office there were certain critical
comments regarding MacArthur's tour at the Academy. In
June 1922 he would have finished three years of duty. Ordi
narily the assignment was considered a four-year detail, but
there was nothing hard or fast about its tenure. It was discov
ered that MacArthur stood No. i on the list of general officers
who were due for foreign service. It was as good an excuse as
any to relieve him and send him to Manila. In mid-January
1922 the War Department made that official announcement.
It kicked up more fuss than had been expected. There were
Letters to the Editor in the New York papers, but the War
Department settled all questions by its press release of January
30.

Brigadier General Fred W. Sladen, commanding Fort Sheridan,
111., was today appointed Superintendent of West Point to relieve
Brigadier General MacArthur on June 30. General MacArthur is
assigned to the Philippines.

But a new element now entered. January 14 The New
York Times printed a dispatch from its Washington office an
nouncing the engagement of Mrs. Louise Brooks and Brigadier
General Douglas MacArthur. Mrs. Brooks was described as
"the only daughter of Mrs. Edward Stotesbury by her first
husband, the late Oliver Cromwell, of New York. She was
formerly the wife of Walter D. Brooks, Jr., of Baltimore and
Green Spring Valley, Maryland, and had been divorced in
France in 1919."

It had been a fast and exciting courtship. The two met at
Tuxedo, the society resort west of the Point. Later at a dinner
party at the superintendent's home the General's mother, too,
was completely charmed by Mrs. Brooks.

Louise Cromwell Brooks was then in her middle 30$, and
MacArthur was 6 or 7 years her senior. She had social back-
110

ground, a splendid zest for living, a son and daughter and a
stepfather who was one of the richest men in America. And
General MacArthur was certainly one of the prize bachelors of
the time.

Mrs. Brooks had lived in Paris much of the post-war years,
and among all the young women of the American colony she
had been one of the gayest and most sought after by the officers
of the army set. Her name had been often linked with that of
General Pershing, although actually it was the attractive Major
John G. Quakemeyer, a bachelor officer on Pershing's staff, who
was her most ardent suitor.

And now in the furor caused by the announcement of the
Brooks-MacArthur engagement and the order relieving Mac-
Arthur of command at West Point, Pershing found that gossip
was involving his name in the twin affair. Shortly after a
critical Letter to the Editor, regarding MacArthur's relief as
superintendent, was published in The New York Times., there
appeared on page 3 of that newspaper a long story from its
Washington office, under the head, Pershing Denies 'Exile' Or
der Rumor. It read:

"It's all damn poppycock, without the slightest foundation and
based on the idlest gossip."

John J. Pershing, General of the Armies and Chief of the War
Department General Staff, used these words tonight in character
izing published rumors that he, as an unsuccessful suitor for the
hand of Mrs. Cromwell Brooks, had "exiled" General MacArthur
to the Philippines.

"There is no ground for that story. It is all damn poppycock.
... If I were married to all the ladies to whom gossip have en
gaged me I would be a regular Brigham Young. General Mac-
Arthur is being ordered to the Philippines because he stands at
the top of the list of officers due for foreign service. He has been
due for such service, as a matter of fact, for over a year.

"I do not know whether General MacArthur has any intention
of resigning from the army. I haven't had the slightest intimation
to that effect from him. But I can say that I do not believe that
General MacArthur would resign from the army merely because
he was about to be ordered to a foreign post. I know General
MacArthur well. He is one of the most splendid types of soldiers
I have ever met. All this stuff is idle nonsense."

Ill

The wedding was performed February 14, 19252, at El Mirasol,
the Spanish villa of Mr. and Mrs, Stotesbury on Ocean Boule
vard in Palm Beach. It was a fashionable affair and was duly
reported in the society columns of all the leading journals of
the country.

The bridegroom was accompanied to Palm Beach by Chap
lain Wheat, who was the only representative of the MacAr-
thur family mentioned among the 200 who attended the wed
ding and the subsequent reception. The absence of the General's
mother was a matter of some comment.

8
RETURN TO THE PHILIPPINES

Life as a married man with two attractive step-children was
possibly a bit more complicated for MacArthur than he had
imagined it would be. His bride was witty, amusing and tal
ented, but her background and her ambitions were quite dif
ferent from her husband's. And no matter how much personal
devotion there was between them, a clash of these two strong
personalities was inevitable.

Besides this, the importance of money assumed a dominance
it had never before held in the mind of the stern soldier, who
had been brought up in a certain gracious austerity. Much of
his boyhood had been spent in army posts, where the MacAr-
thurs necessarily lived with care and frugality on the small
army pay of the period. Eventually his mother inherited $40,-
ooo from her father's estate, and this had been cautiously hus
banded. His father had little more than his regular pay and as
a retired officer during the last three years of his life, his
three-quarters base pay.
112

It was early in October 1922 when their ship docked at
Manila. Eighteen years had passed since he had last seen the
Pearl of the Orient in the fall of 1904. It was good to be
back.

But the intervening years had brought changes. The Fili
pinos had made great advances in home government, and the
independence movement under the tireless and almost in
spired leadership of Manuel Quez6n was growing stronger.

Along with the growing desire of the Filipinos for complete
political freedom and equal social status, a counter movement
among the foreign business sections and in much of the Ameri
can Army and Navy set was driving a dangerous wedge
between the two racial groups. It was a conflict over the al
ready outmoded British colonial idea of class and race superi
ority.

Douglas MacArthur immediately felt the serious impact of
what was happening. He knew what it had meant to the Is
lands when his father had taken into his home the captured
General Aguinaldo, head of the Insurrecto movement, and
treated him as a brother officer and an equal. And now, 21
years later, the son realized that a full awakening of pride and
dignity of race must be part and parcel of the Philippine prep
aration for ultimate independence.

Time and again he went out of his way to show publicly his
friendship and sense of complete social equality with Manuel
Quez6n and other Philippine officials. The Quezons were guests
of honor at dinner parties at the MacArthur home, and every
effort was made to bridge the widening chasm.

MacArthur was shocked to see the increasing acceptance by
his American compatriots of a colonial theory that he knew was
outmoded throughout the whole Far East. He was a complete
realist in his study of the problem. Facts were facts: the age
of exploitation and the old ideas of superiority of races were
definitely coming to an end.

From the moment of his arrival in Manila he had few illu
sions about how he would be accepted by certain of the older
army colonels and general officers, all his elders. He well un
derstood the undercurrents of army envy and critical appraisal,
and they no longer bothered him. He knew, too, that he had

113

loyal friends — at least in the two top American officials in the
Islands; Major General Leonard Wood, the governor general,
and Major General George W. Read, commanding general of
the Department of the Philippines.

When the news of MacArthur's relief from West Point and
his assignment to the Philippine Department reached Manila,
there was some concern at headquarters about what should
be done with him. Major Robert C. Richardson, G-i on the
staff, who handled personnel, and who had been three years
with MacArthur at West Point, conceived the idea of having
him assigned to the command of a somewhat superimposed
and nebulous area to be designated the Military District of
Manila.

Richardson also arranged with the help of Manuel Quez6n,
leader of the Independence movement and speaker of the
House of Representatives, for the Philippine Constabulary to
turn over to MacArthur its old headquarters building at Calle
i Victoria for his residence. It was a beautiful soo-year-old
structure with lovely gardens and vistas that sat atop the high
stone wall surrounding the ancient inner city of Manila. The
MacArthurs, at their own expense, renovated the charming and
exotic place and moved in. It was called The House on the
Wall.

Within the year the War Department in Washington found
out about MacArthur's special assignment to the rather fanci
ful District of Manila, ordered it dissolved and sent him to
command the brigade at Fort McKinley. MacArthur for
tunately was permitted to remain in his unique home and com
mute by motor car to Fort McKinley.

In the middle of February 1923, a cable arrived from the
General's sister-in-law, Mary McCulla MacArthur, that Mother
MacArthur was desperately ill and that the physicians thought
she had not long to live. Immediately plans were made to
leave on the first ship. It sailed from Manila on February
11, and the whole family, Louise and her young son and
daughter accompanied MacArthur on the io,ooo-rnile journey
home.

For a number of years Mrs. Arthur MacArthur had been in
more or less precarious health. The long and trying tours in
114

the isolated frontier posts had left their mark on her. Early in
the days when her son was superintendent at West Point, she
had suffered from an attack of vertigo and had been confined
for some time in the post hospital. One morning the post sur
geon called at MacArthur's office and solemnly told him he
thought his mother could not live more than a few days or
weeks at the most. Her heart might play out at any moment.

MacArthur thanked him, and that noon before lunch he
walked over to the hospital. He was upset, but he believed that
the surgeon's diagnosis was wrong. He felt that he knew his
mother and the strength of her courageous spirit far better
than the army doctor.

Only once or twice in his life did he ever tell the story:
"When I came into her room, I patted her on the back and ap
peared highly elated. I told her that I had the finest news in
the world for her; the doctor had just told me that she had a
strong heart, and that she could leave the hospital anytime she
wanted to. In less than a week I had her home with me, de
spite the doctor's dire prophecies. Fifteen years later I was by
her bedside when she died."

But on the long trip back to San Francisco and across the
continent to Washington, he had no assurance that he would
get there in time. He made it, and the sight and touch of her
son proved to be exactly what the mother needed. He was
grateful all his life for the wonderful care his sister-in-law Mary
poured out on his mother throughout the years when he could
not be with her. And he was deeply appreciative, too, of the
ceaseless interest of Dr. Howard J. Hutter, of the Army Medi
cal Corps, who helped her professionally over the years from
1922 until her death.

Within a few weeks the General's mother was so improved
that he and his family were able to start back to Manila. It was
not long after his arrival when a cable announced the sudden
death from appendicitis of his only brother, Arthur. From now
on the devoted Mary would alone have to face the problem
of caring for her family and of helping to look after Mother
MacArthur as well. No one in the Navy had had a brighter
future or was any more beloved by his men than Captain Arthur
MacArthur. He had been an extraordinarily brilliant officer.

115

About this time the General's West Point yearling roommate,
Major George Cocheu, dropped*- in at his office at Fort
McKinley and found him looking grimly at a sheet of paper
oij his desk. He tossed it over to Cocheu. It was an order for
MacArthur to undertake a complete survey and study of Ba-
^taan and draw up a plan of defense for the mountainous and
wooded peninsula that lay a scant three miles across the sea
channel from Corregidor at the mouth of Manila Bay.
, "Why, that's a job for a young engineer officer and not for
a brigadier general," Cocheu indignantly remarked. "What are
you going to do about it?"

"Obey it, of course," MacArthur answered. "It's an order.
What else can I do?"

For weeks MacArthur and his party of surveyors and map
makers covered every foot of the steaming, malaria-infected
area. Some of it he remembered vividly from the days when as
a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers he had tramped
over its trails and up and down its steep mountainous slopes
and through its bamboo thickets.

In September he received a cable from the War Department
that he was to be made a major general on January 17, 1925.
He would be closing his 44th year when he could pin the sec
ond star on his shoulders. Rarely had so young a man gained
such high honors in days of peace. The single senior peace-time
rank that lay still ahead was that of Chief of Staff of the Army,
which carried the four stars of a temporary full general. He
still had 20 years of active service before his compulsory re
tirement at 64. It seemed plenty of time in which to reach the
final goal.

In due time he assumed command of the 3rd Corps Area in
Baltimore and he and his family settled down in his wife's
country estate at Rainbow Hill, Eccleston, Maryland, within
easy motoring distance of his office. Washington with its great
dinners and social functions was less than two hours distant.

This era was the fabulous period of the stock market boom*
For the first time in his life MacArthur found himself knee-
116

\leep in a social and financial whirl that was most difficult to
resist.

MacArthur was caught in the vortex. But he could not
silence the still small voice that pleaded for the austere and
sacrificing life of a soldier, dedicated to his country.

4'

3

He had been in command at Baltimore and living in his coun
try home only a few weeks when he was appointed to serve
as a member of the military court-martial of the brilliant
young air officer, Brigadier General William (Billy) Mitchell;
There were 12 members of the court at the start, all major
generals, and Colonel Blanton Winship was assigned to act as
law member of the court. The case opened on October 28, 1925,
in an old brick building at the foot of Capitol Hill in Washing
ton.

His assignment as a member of this particular court was
possibly the most distasteful order he had ever received. Billy
Mitchell's grandfather had been a close friend of his own
grandfather in Milwaukee. Mitchell's father had served as a
brother officer with Douglas's father in the 24th Wisconsin Vol
unteer Infantry during the Civil War until Lieutenant Mitchell
had been forced to resign because of eye trouble. The two
sons, Billy and Douglas, had become close friends in Milwau
kee while Douglas awaited his entrance into West Point and
Mitchell was standing by for his orders to Manila. Later each
gained fame in the war in France. And now MacArthur must
sit in judgment on his own companion in arms and old family
friend.

At the opening session three of the members, including Ma
jor General Charles P. Summerall, president of the court,
were challenged by the defense and excused. The trial opened
on Wednesday, and on the following Monday the prosecution
rested its case on the assumption that it had proved that Gen
eral Mitchell had made certain public statements that violated
definite orders that he must cease his violent attacks on the
lack of air preparedness and against certain army superiors.

117

For four full weeks the defense now presented a string of
witnesses who cleverly shifted the hearings completely away
from the original case of Mitchell's insubordination. Instead,
the War Department and the nation itself seemed to be on
trial, with the army fliers as prosecutors. [Mac Arthur fol
lowed much the same course a quarter-century later in the
Senate Hearings that were concerned with his own relief frbm
*, command in Korea: he and his friends brought the real issue to
the front so that the ensuing testimony was broadened to in
clude the entire Far Eastern strategy and policy. As in Mitch
ell's case the effect on national thinking was a vital result.]

As a matter of fact, this long Mitchell trial in 1927
proved a lesson for MacArthur on future air warfare. For a
solid month he listened to brilliant and imaginative young air
men in both the Army and Navy state their case for the new
weapon of the three-dimensional wars of the future. Over and
over again these men of the skies pounded in Mitchell's thesis:
"Neither armies nor navies can exist unless the air is controlled
over them."

Day after day as the trial dragged along Mrs. Billy Mitchell
appeared in the courtroom arm in arm with Mrs. Douglas
MacArthur. It was known that the families were devoted
friends, and since he was a member of the court, this obvious
intimacy of the two wives undoubtedly caused him some em
barrassment.

Only a two-thirds vote was needed for a verdict at the end,
and after a short recess the court found Mitchell guilty of the
charges and sentenced him "to be suspended from rank, com
mand and duty, with forfeiture of all pay and allowances, for
five years." This severe sentence was later modified when the
Secretary of War granted Mitchell half-pay and allowances.

When the verdict was announced it was assumed by many
that MacArthur had voted for conviction. Over the years that
followed, certain of his more violent critics assailed him for his
part in the persecution of Mitchell.

Since members of any court-martial are sworn to secrecy,
there was no proof how MacArthur or anyone else did vote.
Certainly he was greatly in sympathy with the new concept of
the important part the airplane must have in future wars, and
118

of how strategy and tactics on the land and sea must develop
in accordance with the new striking weapon. And so strongly
was MacArthur opposed to gag rule of any kind that many
intimate friends in later years were convinced that he could
only have voted for Mitchell's acquittal.

It was a part of his military philosophy then and later that
an officer should not be gagged or silenced for being at vari
ance with his superiors and with the accepted doctrines. In
years to come this philosophy of an officer's freedom was to be
come extremely important in his own life.

Despite the social demands on his time, he managed to keep
up a fair amount of his reading and study. He was keenly
aware of the growing pressure of foreign ideologies that had
begun to spread over the country in the guise of liberal ideas,
His concern at the moment was the expanding pacifist move
ment that was very definitely threatening a return of national
unpreparedness.

He saw clearly that America was again on the easy road that
led to danger and uncertainty, just as she had always been
after each war in her history. He had known almost first-hand
how deplorable was the lack of national defense following the
Civil War, and on down through the miserable little war with
Spain. He recalled as vividly as if he had been a part in it, how
raw courage had valiantly tried to offset the inexcusable lack
of preparedness in the fighting in Cuba and in the involved and
desperate campaign in the Philippines.

He had many long conversations with the new Chief of
Staff, General Charles P. Summerall, about what might be
done to awaken public interest to the fact that the Army had.
once again been whittled down and starved until its effective
ness was almost neutralized. Dwight F. Davis, Secretary of War,
also was deeply concerned, and it was suggested that MacAr
thur at a great dinner of the Soldiers and Sailors Club at the
Ritz-Carlton in New York should make the principal address,
pointing to the growing danger. Governor Al Smith was a co-
sponsor of this serious attempt to awaken public opinion.

119*

MacArthur's gift for emotional oratory was now fully devel
oped and there were few voices in America that could approach
his lyric quality. There was a prophetic ring, as well, to the talk
he delivered at this much-publicized dinner on April 6, 1927:

With the Red menace in Russia, Poland in disorder, Roumania
threatened with secession, France fighting in Morocco, Nicaragua
in revolution, Mexico in confusion, and civil war in China, it
does not seem unlikely that our streets will again be filled with
marching men and our country again have need of our services.

The provisions of our National Defense Act should be fully
carried out. Total disarmament is unthinkable. No one would
take seriously the equally illogical plan of disbanding our fire
department, or disbanding our police department to stop crime.

Our country insists upon respect for its rights, and gives due
recognition to the rights of all others. But as long as humanity is
governed by motives not in accord with Christianity, we are in
danger of an attack directed by unworthy impulses. We should
be prepared against brutal attack. Those who would not protect
themselves should, as a matter of common decency, be willing to
furnish the reasonable protection required by others.

Our nation has shrunk from enforced military service. But be
tween the two extremes has been evolved the conception of citizen
soldiery. Upon the successful solution of this problem — the citizen
soldier — will depend the very life of the nation. And when the
bloody test comes some American chief on the day of victory is
going to thank God for what the nation is now building up in
its citizen soldiery. . . .

But the entire nation seemed anesthetized by ignorance and
inertia and oblivious to the stealthy infiltration of subversive
conspiracy. He expounded his beliefs as often as he could, but
there was no chance to turn them into anything bordering on
a crusade.

[In due time it became apparent that it was during this pe
riod of the late '205 and early 'sjos that MacArthur won the
bitter and enduring enmity of two powerful groups within the
United States: the Communists and the Pacifists. The latter in
cluded many internationalists and well-wishers who violently
opposed his belief that national security depends on adequate
preparedness.]
120

Even during the seriousness of these days MacArthur's life
was a varied one. He had never lost his keen interest in sports,
and now and again he attended championship fights and World
Series baseball games. In mid-September 1927, after the sud
den death of the president of the American Olympic Commit
tee, he was offered that difficult post and the active directorship
of the Olympic team. The Army Chief of Staff agreed to
place him on detached service, and the next June in Amster
dam the American team won first place with 131 points, with
Finland in second place with 62 points.

The day after the victorious team returned to New York
General Summerall addressed a letter to MacArthur:

I can best voice what is universally recognized that you alone
are responsible for cementing the bonds between disorganized
and factional organizations, infusing a spirit and resolution and
will to win in the contestants, and maintaining before the world
the noblest ideals of American citizenship. You have not only
maintained the reputation that Americans do not quit, but that
Americans know how to win.

With my own warm and deepest gratitude,

Faithfully your friend,
Charles P. Summerall

"Americans do not quit" in this letter referred to an incident
when the first boxing contest was decided against the American
contender who seemed to have won over his South African op
ponent. The manager of the American boxing team had im
mediately withdrawn his men from further competition. But
MacArthur ordered the team back into the contest, saying that
Americans never quit.

MacArthur on his return had two weeks to cross the conti
nent and embark at Seattle for Manila. The Chief of Staff had
directed that he proceed to the command of the -Department
of the Philippines. He was now assured of a friend in the office
of the Chief of Staff. He had ample time to pack and arrange his
personal affairs. His wife and her children did not accompany
him this time.

121

Once again in the bright and lovely city o£ Manila, now with
no family responsibilities, he could return to his old routine
of aloofness to social demands and after the day's work turn
undisturbed to his books and study. The magnetism of his per
sonality was keen and alive, and the quiet austerity of his life
in no way reflected any traits of an introvert. Almost invariably
there was a frank and cheery good-feeling about him person
ally that was infectious and stimulating.

He immediately discovered that he was more in accord with
the broad and tolerant attitude toward the Filipinos that
guided Henry L. Stimson, then governor general, than he had
been on his previous tour with that of Major General Leonard
Wood.

His return as commanding general of the Department within
three short years after his previous tour of duty caused the
usual comments and whisperings among some older and less
fortunate officers. It did not in the least bother him.

Soon after he had taken over command the adjutant general
of the Department came to him with a thick-bound volume of
mimeographed sheets and explained that the staff had gath
ered a collection of all the precedents that had been estab
lished by the various commanding generals so that MacArthur
would know what to do no matter what the problem might be.
"We thought you might be interested in having this/' the offi
cer explained proudly.

General MacArthur lifted the bulky volume. "It's a tremen
dous job you have don£/' he said. "How many copies of this
are there?"

"Exactly six, sir/1 the officer answered.

MacArthur looked him straight in the eyes and there was no
smile showing when he said:, "Well, you get all those six copies
together and burn them — every one of them. I'll not be bound
by precedents. Any time a problem comes up, I'll make the de
cision at once — immediately."

Long ago he had learned the art of quick decision. His mind
was already so steeped in experience and military background
122

that he had no need to hesitate or postpone his conclusions. He
walked alone but with a sure and steady step.

There is no record of MacArthur having met Manuel Que-
z6n when he first came to the Islands in 1903, but during his
second tour he had started a firm friendship with this leader
of the Independence movement. On this return to Manila in
1928, he and the Quez6n family renewed their warm friendship.

MacArthur had no sympathy whatever with the line of racial
cleavage that was now being drawn by large elements of the
American military colony and the upper crust of foreign civil
ians. He saw that it had increased to an alarming extent even
during the few short years he had been back in the States, and
he determined that he would show his opposition.

Not long after he arrived on this tour of duty it came to his
attention that on the three-decker boats that shuttled back and
forth between Corregidor and Manila the top deck was re
served for American officers and their families, and the lower
decks were for American enlisted men and their families, and
for enlisted and civilian Filipinos.

The civilian engineer on Corregidor who knew most about
the secret installations on the rock citadel was a Spanish sol
dier who had gone over to the Americans in 1898. This engi
neer could ride on the top deck himself, but his fine Filipino
wife and children were relegated to the lower deck. When a
U. S. colonel asked the provost marshal on Corregidor to cor
rect this injustice, the officer told him that the regulations re
garding boat decks could not be changed.

When MacArthur heard of this he immediately sent for the
coast artillery officer who commanded, Corregidor.

"But the regulations are clear," the high-ranking officer ar
gued, when the matter was laid before him.

MacArthur blazed out at him: "You change them at once.
Understand, at once!"

Little stories like this, indicating MacArthur' s fairness to
ward the Filipinos, began to be repeated over the Islands.

Quez6n had had much to do with picking Henry L. Stimson
as governor general in 1927. Besides "racial sensitiveness/' as
Stimson labelled it, an even more disturbing factor in the

Philippine situation was the demand of American cordage,
sugar and dairy interests that the duty-free entrance of Philip
pine sugar and copra should be stopped, and that the Islands
should quickly be granted full independence.

With the coming of the Hoover administration on March 4,
1929, Stimson was promoted to the cabinet position of Secre
tary of State. The decision as to his successor in Manila was
temporarily postponed by President Hoover. No position
within the appointing power of the President was more sensi
tive or explosive. Many commercial interests were in direct op
position to American pledges and ideals. And in the Islands
themselves Quez6n and other Filipino leaders were beginning
to think that possibly they had gone a little too far and fast
in their demands for immediate and full independence, and
that they might better go along under the protecting wing of
the United States as a commonwealth with free-trade privi
leges.

Already Quez6n was turning to MacArthur for advice and
help. The General's concern was primarily involved in defense
and in the growing threat of Japan's expansion. It was not his
province to be concerned with the time schedule of independ
ence, but he was firm in his belief in the rightness of ultimate
Philippine independence, with a strong and lasting tie-in with
the United States. These Islands were his second home. Two
generations of MacArthur soldiers had proven how deep was
their affection for this lovely land.

On June 17, 1929, a friendly reporter from a Manila paper
brought MacArthur the yellow flimsy of an A. P. dispatch from
Reno, Nevada. It read:

Major General Douglas MacArthur was divorced here today
by his wife, Mrs. Henrietta Louise MacArthur, on the grounds
of failure to provide.

Although the complaint charged failure to provide, and Mrs.

MacArthur's testimony had only to do with the allegation, after

she left the court room she said: "General MacArthur and I have

divorced because we were wholly incompatible to one another.

124

I have the greatest respect and admiration for him, and we part
as friends."

The Manila reporter said that his editor was perfectly
willing to kill the story if it would offend the General.

'Tut it on the front page if you care to," he answered, giving
no sign of his personal distaste. "It doesn't make the slightest
difference to me."

A month after the arrival of this dispatch from Reno, Mac-
Arthur was handed a long decoded cable marked "Secret." It
was marked "For MacArthur's eyes only":

The President desires to appoint you as Chief of Engineers. He
desires a reorganization of the Engineer Corps administration
along broad lines to conform to the magnitude and diversity of
its activities, greatly increased by the flood control and inland
waterway projects. I have assured the Secretary of War and the
President of your unswerving loyalty and cooperation in exe
cuting his wishes. He is convinced of your organizing ability and
professional qualifications. The President desires to know whether
you are willing to accept the appointment. Keep this in strictest
confidence. Reply in same code.

Summerall,
Chief of Staff

It was very difficult to turn down such a request coming from
the President. But MacArthur knew that if he accepted the
appointment, he would set a roadblock against his chances of
ever being made Chief of Staff. Besides, he had long ago ceased
thinking of himself as primarily an army engineer; he was a
soldier of the Line. He had tasted field command and war,
and they had given him a bitter-sweet memory that had be
come a part of his life.

Carefully but firmly he begged off from the assignment. The
great Mississippi river floods had left the engineer-minded
President Hoover deeply shaken, and MacArthur had been rec
ommended to him as the general officer most competent to re
organize and enlarge the Corps of Engineers.

As the year 1929 drifted into 1930, the Far Eastern world
like the European had dark patches of warning in the skies.
Germany was about to rearm, Japan was plotting her further

125

conquest of Manchuria and her intrusion into China proper.
And America was wallowing in the slough of despair and inse
curity.

MacArthur's tour of duty in Manila would be finished in
October 1930. On July 7 he cabled the Adjutant General
in Washington asking for assignment to the 2nd Corps Area
in New York City, whenever that command became vacant.
He wired: "I have never before made special application for
station, and I earnestly solicit favorable consideration. The
most impelling personal reasons dictate the request."

In the same cable he requested permission to make a final
inspection trip of China and Japan, and then return home on
a commercial liner from Yokohama, without back-tracking to
Manila. The following day a reply came granting him the
travel permission and assuring him that his request for assign
ment to the 2nd Corps Area would receive consideration.

In Washington every conceivable kind of pressure was being
brought to bear on President Hoover and Secretary of War
Hurley by the political friends of a number of the senior
major generals for the appointment to succeed Summer all
as Chief of Staff. President Hoover was very clear in his mind
on one thing: He held unequivocally that "the choice of Chief
of Staff by seniority led only to dead ends." He considered
vigorous young blood and an independent mind badly needed
in this exacting office. And he was determined that the new
Chief of Staff must not be tied in with the old army cliques.

In all this reasoning he was completely supported by his able
Secretary of War, Patrick J. Hurley, who had made a fine rec
ord in the brilliant ycd Division in France. Hurley had long
been impressed by the record and personality of MacArthmv
and his favorable opinion was further strengthened by a cable
gram from him that he received on May 22. It read as fol
lows:

I have just read in the local papers your letter to Senator
Bingham dealing with the Philippine problem, and I cannot re
frain from expressing to you the unbounded admiration it has
caused me. It is the most comprehensive and statesmanlike paper
that has ever been presented with reference to this complex arid
perplexing problem. At one stroke it has clarified issues which
126

have perplexed and embarrassed statesmen for the last thirty
years. If nothing else had ever been written upon the subject,
your treatise would be complete and absolute. It leaves nothing
to be said and has brought confidence and hope out of the morass
of chaos and confusion which has existed in the minds of mil
lions of people. It is the most statesmanlike utterance that has
emanated from the American Government in many decades and
renews in the hearts of many of us our confirmed faith in Amer
ican principles and ideals. You have done a great and courageous
piece of work and I am sure that the United States intends even
greater things for you in the future. Please accept my heartiest
congratulations not only for yourself personally but the great na
tion to which we both belong.

The Secretary's mind had already been made up as to his
own choice of Chief of Staff when the President asked for the
personal files of the two youngest major generals on the list
of those who still had four years to serve before retirement.
Mac Arthur was the youngest of the major generals who still
had four years' service ahead of them., and he was the senior
of this particular group. The second youngest major general
was Hugh A. Drum. After careful study the President agreed
to accept Hurley's recommendation of Douglas MacArthur.

Before any announcement of the decision had been made
the Secretary of War "was summoned late one afternoon to the
White House. When he entered the study he found General of
the Armies John J, Pershing, who had just returned from a
mission in France, in conference with the President. After the
usual greetings the President quietly asked Hurley why he
had not consulted Pershing regarding the appointment of a
new Chief of Staff. It was evident to Hurley that Hoover wanted
to be relieved from the pressure General Pershing was exer
cising.

Hurley replied that Pershing was abroad at the time
the decision was made. Then he promptly added: "But even if
he had been here in Washington, I probably would not have
consulted him* Mr. President/*

In a frank and straightforward .manner the Secretary -ex
plained that he had learned discipline and the chain of com
mand from Pershing. He had never offered unasked mdvice

to his seniors. He understood fully the responsibilities and the
duties of a superior officer. He was now General Pershing's
superior, and he probably would not have accepted General
Pershing's unsolicited advice. This difficult decision regarding
the appointment of a Chief of Staff was the Secretary of War's
responsibility — subject only to the final decision by the Presi
dent, his single superior. If the President now wanted to
change the appointment, he would gladly accept his orders.

General Pershing rose to his feet and walking to the Secre
tary's chair patted his shoulder. "Well, Mr. President/' he pro
nounced with emotion, "he is one of my boys. I have nothing
more to say."

Later it became known that Pershing had strongly urged
the President to appoint either Fox Conner, his chief of staff
in the A.E.F., or Hanson E. Ely, who had served as command
ing general of the 5th Division in France.

On August 5, 1930, a radiogram from Major General Preston
Brown, Acting Chief of Staff, was handed MacArthur in his
office in Manila. It read:

President has just announced your detail as Chief of Staff to
succeed General Summerall. My heartiest congratulations.

MacArthur was then a few days over 50 1/% years. It has been
said that he was the youngest general officer ever to be ap
pointed Chief of Staff. But in fact, J. Franklin Bell, who
owed so much to Douglas MacArthur's father, had been made
Chief of Staff in 1906 several months before he was 50; and
Major General Leonard Wood was not 50 when he was chosen
in 1910 as Chief of Staff by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Certainly no other soldier, regardless of age, had ever
brought to the high office the breadth of mind and background
and grasp of world affairs that Douglas MacArthur possessed.
For many years he had been deliberately preparing himself
for this great task. The appointment was a surprise to him
and his friends only because he was chosen at this particular
time rather than 4 or even 8 years later.

A tempest in the army teapot boiled up immediately. The
128

New York Times let loose an editorial blast against the Presi
dent's purported statement that "he is the only one of the
Major Generals who has a sufficient period to serve in the
army before retirement, to serve the full four-year term as Chief
of Staff." The paper duly listed the names of ten other major
generals who had at least four years more to serve, and added
that there were only nine major generals who would have to go
on the retired list before the next four years were ended.

Three days later the War Department cleared up the mis
understanding by explaining that what the President had really
said was that MacArthur was "the senior ranking general"
among those who could serve the full four-year term as Chief of
Staff.

But the storm blew itself out long before it reached the
Philippines. Whoever plucked the plum would have to face the
envy of many officers and their friends.

Mac Arthur's orders to inspect army installations west of the
Mississippi river and then assume office on November %*»
1930, automatically cancelled his contemplated trip to China,
Manchuria, Korea and Japan. But his own Intelligence Sec
tion, operating out of the Department headquarters in
Manila, had kept him fairly well informed of Asiatic affairs.
He was familiar with the stealthy Japanese intrusion into the
mainland of China. Japan had been slowly building up her
economic empire in Manchuria, and he was certain that in
time she would find or create the necessary excuse for military
adventure.

He knew of the undercover activities of Colonel Doihara, an
ambitious Japanese officer. He thought that the Tanaka Me
morial, allegedly mapping Japan's future Asiatic advances, was
substantially true, and he was familiar with Japan's Twenty-
one Demands of World War I days.

It was clear to him that the great decisions regarding the
fate of Asia and the Western Pacific were still to be made. The
shadow of an ambitious Red Russia in the vast reaches of East
ern Siberia was slowly growing more ominous. Here in North
eastern Asia was the Triangle-of-Destiny, where the fate of
China, Russia and Japan might be decided and the future
history of the whole world be written.

129

Already Communist Russia had made great gains in under
mining the inner citadels of its enemies. He was disturbed
especially by the secret boring from within by Red termites,
already working on the insecure pillars of the restless and
awakening colonial lands of East Asia — and even on the foun
dations of his own America. In the Philippines he had followed
closely the workings of Russian and Japanese secret agents.
He was aware of the growing threat of the vast revolutionary
social and political unrest in these lands and peoples of the
Far East.

He understood the manifold problems that lay ahead of him
as Chief of Staff. The great depression was still on, and he knew
that it would be hard to arouse Congress to the needs of even
half-way preparedness. As a start he must first straighten out
the definite injustices and inequalities in officer pay and pro
motion and then take up the long fight to modernize the Army
itself.

He welcomed the struggles and conflicts that he faced. He
recognized no allegiance to anything or anyone save his coun
try. Thoughts and dicta of his father were constantly in his
mind. And he was aware, too, of how much he owed his
mother. As an intimate member of the family explained
many years later: "Somehow or other he had acquired through
her the rare and subconscious gift of being able to tune into
the great force that exists in the universe, and to draw from
it an inner spirit and a sustaining power."

It warmed his heart to know that he could once again take
her under his protecting wing. She was now in her 78th year,
and although he appreciated the endless sacrifices his sister-in-
law, Mary McCulla MacArthur* had made in giving her a
home and in caring for her, he felt that once she was installed
with him in the Chief of Staffs quarters at Fort Myer, outside
Washington, her health and spirits would show definite im
provement.

PART TWO

The Fight for
Preparedness

1930-1941

THE FIRST BATTLE

It was to a greatly changed America that MacArthur returned
in the late fall of 1930, and he was now operating on a much
higher and more exacting level of authority.

All during the previous 27 years of his commissioned service
he had been receiving orders and policy decisions made by
others. Now he would make the over-all decisions and give the
orders.

The great depression had been on for almost a year. Mil
lions were jobless, confidence was shaken, and public morale
was at the lowest it had been since the panic of 1892-3.

A little over two weeks before MacArthur was sworn in as
Chief of Staff, the Democrats had recaptured the Lower House
of Congress and put an end to any chance the Hoover ad
ministration might have had to work its way out of the eco
nomic debacle. The opposition now set its sights on the presi
dential election of 1932. Any hope of unity or cooperation
between the parties was definitely over.

133

Under the guise of the pressing need for economy in govern
ment, certain leaders of the opposition began a frontal assault
on the Army and Navy. Consciously or unconsciously they lent
their support to an increasing number of pacifists who
preached moral disarmament and America's role in leading
the way toward permanent peace by stripping bare her own
inadequate defenses. MacArthur sensed the very real danger.
Yet to oppose the powerful group was to bring on the charge
of being a militarist. He was certain that many of the pacifist
leaders were innocent tools in the hands of radical and liberal
groups and elements that were in many cases definitely Social
ist and pro-Bolshevik.

In the late spring of 1931, after he had been Chief of Staff
six months, the problem seemed to reach a minor climax in a
questionnaire circulated among some 53,000 Protestant clergy
men by S. Parkes Cadman, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Daniel
A. Poling and seven others through the auspices of The World
Tomorrow, a powerful church weekly. One question on the
list was: "Do you believe that the Churches of America should
now go on record as refusing to sanction or support any future
war?"

Of the 19,372 replies received, 12,076 (62%) expressed
the opinion that the churches of America should not support
any future war.

Another question read: "Are you personally prepared to
state that it is your present purpose not to sanction any future
war or participate as an armed combatant?" To this 10,427 —
or 54% — answered that they would not sanction war nor partici
pate in it.

The result of the poll was published in the May 1931 issue
of the magazine. The June issue was devoted almost entirely
to a series of articles by notable pacifists then in America,
including the German refugee Albert Einstein. In a more
critical section appeared a long letter from MacArthur.

My predominant feeling with reference to the majority of re
plies received by your paper from 19,372 clergymen is that of
surprise; surprise at the knowledge that so many of the clergymen
of this country have placed themselves on record as repudiating in
advance the constitutional obligations that will fall upon them

equally with all other elements of our citizenship in supporting
this country in case of need,

To exercise privilege without assuming attending responsibility
and obligation is to occupy a position of license, a position ap
parently sought by men who do not avail themselves of the privi
leges conferred by our democracy upon its citizens, but who, in
effect, proclaim their willingness to see this nation perish rather
than participate in its defense.

The question of war and peace is one that rests, under our
form of government, in Congress. In exercising this authority,
Congress voices the will of the majority, whose right to rule is
the cornerstone upon which our governmental edifice is built.
Under the Constitution, its pronouncement on such a question
is final, and is obligatory upon every citizen of the United States.

That men who wear the cloth of the Church should openly
defend repudiation of the laws of the land, with the necessary
implications and ramifications arising from such a general atti
tude toward our statutes, seems almost unbelievable. It will cer
tainly hearten every potential or actual criminal and malefactor
who either has or contemplates breaking some other law. . . .

Perhaps the greatest privilege of our country, which indeed
was the genius of its foundation, is religious freedom. Religious
freedom, however, can exist only as long as government survives.
To render our country helpless would invite destruction, not only
of our political and economic freedoms, but also of our religious
freedom. . . .

Any organization which opposes the defense of the homeland
and the principles hallowed by the blood of our ancestors* which
sets up internationalism in the place of patriotism, which teaches
the passive submission of right to the forces of the predatory
strong, cannot prevail against the demonstrated staunchness of
our position. . . .

This was the beginning of the moral fight MacArthur waged
during the years he remained in Washington. Almost exactly a
year after his letter to the religious journal, he addressed
the graduating class at the University of Pittsburgh. A small
radical group had planned an anti-war demonstration and pro
test against his appearance, and a number of students were
actually engaged in starting a mass protest when police ap
peared and arrested three students. MacArthur was able to de
liver his address uninterrupted. He said in part:

135

Pacifism and its bedfellow communism are all about us. In the
theatre, newspaper and magazines, pulpits and lecture halls,
schools and colleges, it hangs like a mist before the face of Amer
ica, organizing the forces of unrest and undermining the morale
of the working man.

Day by day this canker eats deeper into the body politic.

For the sentimentalism and emotionalism which have infested
our country, we should substitute hard, common sense. Pacifist
habits do not insure peace or immunity . . .

It was June 9, 1932, when he spoke these prophetic words.
The Bonus Marchers were already beginning to drift into
Washington.

A number of important matters occurred during the year be
tween the MacArthur letter to The World Tomorrow and his
speech at the University of Pittsburgh. One was the demand in
certain Democratic circles in Congress that big cuts be made
in both army and navy appropriations.

But MacArthur entertained no such defeatist ideas. He
proposed to keep the little Army intact and abreast of the best
military thought in the world. It had been more than 1 2 years
since he had returned from France and the first World War,
and he felt the need to catch up with the latest military de
velopments in Europe. On September 4, 1931, he and his
energetic aide-de-camp, Captain T. J. Davis, sailed on the Le
viathan to attend the annual maneuvers in France as the per
sonal guest of General Maxime Weygand, Chief of Staff of the
French Army.

The exercises were in the Aisne Valley, adjoining the battle
field of the Ourcq where MacArthur's Rainbow Division had
suffered more than 5,000 casualties.

At the close of the maneuvers a group of ranking officers
were gathered in a knoll overlooking the rolling country near
Rheims and Dormans. Dramatically the French Minister of
War, M. Andr£ Maginot, strode out in front of the party. He
stood six feet four. In a booming voice he asked General Mac-
Arthur to step forward. With a flourish the War Minister made
a touching little speech and hung the ribbon and medal of
156

the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor around General Mac-
Arthur's neck.

MacArthur was on his way to Yugoslavia on September 18
when the news arrived that the Japanese Army in Manchuri^i
had engineered the Mukden incident and that a one-sided war
was now on in the strategic lands north of the Great Wall of
China. What he had so long feared had finally happened. He
returned to America as soon as he could do so without arous
ing too much speculation.

He found that Secretary of State Stimson strongly favored
imposing moral sanctions on Japan, but when President
Hoover by long-distance telephone sought the approval of
France and England and was flatly turned down, the Chief
Executive argued that a one-nation boycott was tantamount to
a declaration of war.

As early as September 1924 a joint board of the Army and
Navy had worked out War Plan Orange, a program for action
in case of a war with Japan. In broad terms the Plan called
for the Army to secure Manila Bay by holding strategic Cor-
regidor and Bataan for four to six months, during which time
it was hoped that the Navy would be able to send its fleet with
a great train of transports and supply ships to the relief of
the bay. Manila would then become a secure base of operations
for the ultimate defeat of Japan.

There was much opposition to the plan, particularly among
certain army leaders who thought that the Philippines could
not be defended, and that the sooner the United States
withdrew all its military fordes and abandoned its installations,
the better off the nation would be.

In March 1934 Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act,
which guaranteed full independence to the Philippines in
1946. General MacArthur 's conclusion was that in case of
war with Japan America's duty was clear-cut and inescapable;
it was simply to carry out the pledges embodied in the
Tydings-McDuffie Act, in which the United States accepted
full responsibility for the defense of the Islands until they
attained complete independence in 1946.

In May 1935, while he was Chief of Staff, the joint Army and
Navy board again revised the Orange Plan in order to bring it

137

into line with the new Four-Army Plan and with the Navy's
conception that in case of war the Pacific Fleet's westward ad
vance across the Central Pacific would have to be by progres
sive stages.

Five years later when, as Quez6n's Military Advisor, Mac-
Arthur was deeply concerned with the actuality of building a
Filipino force to oppose Japanese aggression, he answered a
letter from a brilliant young regular officer about his pessi
mistic feeling regarding the Army War College he was then
attending. It merits being quoted:

I note a tone of disappointment — almost of frustration — in
your critique of the War College Course. The more you become
acquainted with the bureaucracy of our governmental depart
ments the more pessimistic you will become. "Red tape," "Bu
reaucracy/1 "Routine," "Laissez faire"— whatever you wish to call
it— its deadening effect is felt by everyone who comes within the
scope of its influence. The great figures that we produce are those
who pay little attention to such matters and retain their own
freedom of initiative when emergency arises.

I recall my complete disagreement with the Orange Plan when
I became Chief of Staff, but I realized at once that I would be
wasting my time in trying to educate others to my own point of
view. I, therefore, short-circuited by seeing the President person
ally and telling him that if mobilization became necessary during
my tenure of office my first step would be to send two divisions
from the Atlantic coast to reinforce the Philippines; two divisions
from the Gulf of Mexico to reinforce Panama, and two divisions
from the Pacific coast to reinforce Hawaii, and that I intended to
defend every inch of those possessions and defend them success
fully. This being the case, the Orange Plan was a completely use
less document. The President agreed with me entirely.

I presume that the Orange Plan that you spoke of is still the
same old plan that was antiquated even before my own tenure as
Chief of Staff. Fortunately, the man who is in command at the
time will be the man who will determine the main features of
campaign. If he is a big man he will pay no more attention to the
stereotyped plans that may be filed in the dusty pigeon holes of
the War Department than their merit warrants.

It was the aggressive soldier and the independent thinker
who wrote these lines. Long before this he broke with prece-
138

dent and all the debilitating checks that are put on courageous
and original thinking. His mind was weighed down with no
inhibitions or fears of failure or disapproval.

Back at his desk in the War Department late in 1931 Mae-
Arthur was struck by the almost complete lack of realism in
the public's attitude toward the developing world crisis. The
Japanese Army was running wild in Manchuria, and the situ
ation in the Far East was so explosive that the United States
might easily be drawn into war.

Yet there was a definite and powerful group in the
Democratic-controlled Congress, convening on December 7,
1931, that was openly attacking the Army under the guise of
economy.

MacArthur's position was most difficult. At the very moment
when American armed forces should be enlarged to meet any
sudden emergency, he had his back to the wall fighting to pro
tect the little Army he had. The most he asked for at the start
of the new Congressional session, when the purse strings were
in the hands of the party opposing the Hoover administra
tion, was a new promotion bill that would correct the worst of
the injustices of the war hump. Every detail of his plan was
assailed, and a bill was being considered that would reduce
the officer corps from 12,000 to 10,000.

In the midst of the argument the frightening news was
cabled from Shanghai on January 28, 1932, that Japanese
marines in the International Settlement had invaded the bor
dering Chinese section of Chapei, and that a full scale war be
tween Japan and China had begun. Thousands of Chinese ci
vilians in Shanghai were killed by the naval bombardment
and by gunfire from Japanese ground troops.

At conferences of the joint Army and Navy board, plans
were drawn up to meet as thoroughly as possible any of the
numberless emergencies that might occur. Due to the very na
ture of its task and composition, the Navy was constantly in
a state of readiness. But not the Army: Its 12,255 regular
officers and 124,301 enlisted men (including 6,000 native Fili-

pino Scouts in federal service) were scattered in scores of
posts in Luzon, Hawaii, Alaska and Panama and across the
continental United States.

All the winter and spring of 1932 on the home front Mac-
Arthur fought the enemies of preparedness. Despite the peril
ous situation in Asia, the number of regular troops within the
continental United States available for combat duty was only
slightly more than three times the number of men on the New
York City police force. For the time being Representative Ross
Collins of Mississippi and his followers centered their major
demands for army economy on the dangerous proposition that
2,000 officers must be cut from the list of 12,255. In quiet
desperation MacArthur on May 10; 1932, wrote a letter to
Minority Leader Snell that obviously was meant largely for
publicity use.

An army can live on short rations, it can be insufficiently
clothed and housed, it can even be poorly armed and equipped,
but in action it is doomed to destruction without the trained and
adequate leadership of officers.

An efficient and sufficient Corps of Officers means the difference
between victory and defeat.

But when the first vote was taken on the War Department
Appropriation Bill providing for the reduction of 2,000 officers
it was passed in the Lower House by a vote of 201 to 182.

MacArthur fought back for almost two months, and on July
12 a compromise bill to cut only 1,000 from the officer list
failed to pass by a vote of 175 to 154. The entire Democratic
Tammany delegation of New York City, led by Representative
Thomas H. Cullen, voted against the bill. The Army was saved.

In its issue of July 16, 1932, the powerful Army if Navy
Journal said editorially:

For seven long, dreary months General MacArthur fought the
forces of destruction in the Congress.

For four months prior to that time he struggled to prevent

budget recommendations which threatened to hamstring the

Service and to discourage the advocates of National Defense. The

fight he made was not only for the Army, it was for the Navy

140

and Marine Corps as well; for the pacifists conceived that the
Army was the easiest arm to attack, and on its weakening they
anticipated it would establish a precedent for a later assault on
the sea Services. . . .

Undoubtedly the Army has a conception of the gruelling labor
involved, the tactful consideration displayed, the careful thought
necessary to counter the moves made by no mean adversaries.
Representative Collins, and his inspirational chiefs, Speaker Gar
ner and Representative Byrnes, Chairman of the Appropriations
Committee. But its conception fell far short of the facts. Willing
to make concessions on travel, subsistence, comforts, Yes, said
General MacArthur, but on man-power, No!

Should the Democrats retain control of the House in the next
Congress, Representative Collins doubtless will renew his officer
cut demands.

The Journal's prophecy proved to be correct on both vital
counts.

The sore had been festering for more than six weeks. During
June and July 1932 a group estimated at about 11,000 unem
ployed, many of whom were not veterans at all, had gathered
in Washington, in the hope of compelling Congress to vote
immediately for a cash bonus to World War I veterans.

Actually the movement was far deeper and more danger
ous than a mere raid on the almost empty federal treasury;
it was a well-conceived plot of the American Communist party,
backed and instructed by Moscow, to bring about a bloody
riot that would involve the U. S. Army and force it to fire on
veterans. The hope then was that this action would lead the
way to a revolutionary mood that might spread to other cities
and eventually involve the entire country which was still suffer
ing from unemployment and depression. There was the long
chance that a real revolution might follow. This was in the
nature of a dangerous trial balloon. Many of the innocent
leaders had no inkling of the true motives of the Red organ
izers who shortly took over actual direction in Washington.

Newspapers dubbed the affair the "Bonus March," and toi

141

days on end the press of the country carried stories o£ the
threatening gangs that President Hoover was patiently trying
to handle without resort to violence. He succeeded in obtain
ing funds to buy tickets home for the legitimate veterans and
their families. Some 6,000 left the city, but there still re
mained a hard core of 5,000 irreconcilables.

Assistant Attorney General Nugent Dodds had recently
sent to the White House a report from the F.B.I. stating that
fingerprints made of 4,334 Bonus Marchers by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation showed that 1,069 of them — nearly
25% — were of men who had criminal records ranging from
murder and rape to such minor categories as drunkenness.
There is ample evidence that the Communists had gained con
trol before the day of the riot. The Chief of Staff and the
Army were completely alerted to the grave dangers that ex
isted.

On the morning of July 28, L. H. Richelderfer, president
of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, in
formed the President that about 50 of the malcontents were
occupying several old buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue, and
that their tenure interfered with certain government construc
tion work going on. Treasury representatives asked the intrud
ers to move out, but their answer was to bring in a mob of
a thousand from outside camps. In the struggle with Wash
ington police that morning a number of police officers were
injured, one marcher was killed and a bystander was wounded.
In all, 57 persons were seriously injured.

The Police Commissioner appealed at once to the Board
of Commissioners of the District of Columbia to ask the Presi
dent to call out federal troops. Commissioner Richelderfer
immediately addressed a message to the President asserting
that it would "be impossible for the police department to
•maintain law and order except by the free use of firearms.
. . . The presence of federal troops in small number will ob
viate the seriousness of thfe situation, and it will result in far
less violence and bloodshed."

At cmce the President called in Secretary of War Hurley
and directed him to take charge, cautioning him to prevent
bloodshed but to restore law and order. At 2:55 that after-

noon of July 28, Hurley formulated his orders and at the re
quest of General MacArthur issued them in writing:

To: General Douglas MacArthur,
Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

The President has just now informed me that the civil govern
ment of the District of Columbia has reported to him that it is
unable to maintain law and order in the District.

You will have United States troops proceed immediately to the
scene of disorder. Cooperate fully with the District of Columbia
police force which is now in charge. Surround the affected area
and clear it without delay.

Turn over all prisoners to the civil authorities.

In your orders insist that any women or children who may be
in the affected area be accorded every consideration and kind
ness. Use all humanity consistent with the due execution of the
order.

Patrick /. Hurley
Secretary of War

Six hundred soldiers from nearby units were standing by
and ready for instant service. General MacArthur personally
instructed Brigadier General Perry L. Miles, commanding the
i6th Brigade, to carry out the orders. General Miles, in turn,
passed on the detailed instructions to his unit commanders:

We are acting on the order of the President of the United
States. The cavalry will make a demonstration down Pennsylvania
Avenue. The infantry will deploy in line of skirmishers in the
rear of the cavalry. You will surround the area on Pennsylvania
Avenue between Third and Fourth Streets, and evict the men in
possession there. Use care and consideration toward all women
and children who may be in the area.

At this time Army Regulations prescribed that officers serving
in the War Department and on the General Staff should wear
civilian clothes save on special occasions. So grave did the situ
ation appear to the Chief of Staff that at the last moment he
decided to put on his uniform and take personal charge of the
delicate operation. D wight D. Eisenhower, a major on his per
sonal staff, accompanied him in uniform as a sort of special
assistant. Another major, George S. Patton, commanded the

143

squadron of the 3rd Cavalry that had been ordered over from
Fort Myer.

It was 4:30 in the afternoon when the Regulars began their
march down Pennsylvania Avenue, the cavalry leading, fol
lowed by six small tanks, a platoon of machine gunners and
then the infantry — a scant 600 all told. The brickbats of the
Bonus Marchers were answered by tear gas, MacArthur him
self getting a lungful. Several cavalrymen were knocked off
their horses by bricks, but there was no lessening of the
steady pressure of the soldiers though not one shot was fired
by the troops.

By 6:30 the two camps on Pennsylvania Avenue had been
cleared, and 45 minutes later the camp of John Pace's radical
group was set fire by the men themselves, and it was evacu
ated shortly before the troops arrived. By 9:20 p.m. the sol
diers reached Anacostia Flats and slowly pushed out the riot
ers, who set fire to a number of their own huts. Not a single
Bonus Marcher had been seriously injured. The definite show
of force, the discipline of the troops involved and the plenti
ful use of tear gas had turned the trick that had balked the
Police Commissioner and caused the Board of Commissioners
to call on the President for help.

Somewhere between 10 and 11 o'clock that night, after a per
sonal report to the President, MacArthur returned to his office.
Newspapermen were waiting for him, and the Secretary of
War suggested he give out a statement. MacArthur explained
that he had confined his operations to clearing the marchers
out of government buildings and off government property. He
believed that only i in 10 of the mob was a war veteran. He
regarded the rest as insurrectionists. He continued:

If President Hoover had not acted when he did he would have
been faced^with a serious situation. Another week might have
meant that the government was in peril. He [Hoover] had reached
the end of an extraordinary patience and had gone to the very
limit to avoid friction before using force. Had the President not
acted when he did he would have been derelict in his duty.

The following day police rounded up 36 of the leaders while
they were holding a meeting in an abandoned church. Among
144

the men arrested was James Ford, who was identified as the
American Communist Party candidate for vice-president. An
other of the prisoners was Emmanuel Levin of New York
City, who was one of the recognized leaders of the Communist
group in the bonus mobs. The Army quietly offered to fill
up the gas tanks of the marchers' cars, and with a hot meal
from the army rolling kitchens most of the rioters headed for
home.

On the Sunday following the Bloody Thursday The New
York Times carried on its front page this item regarding the
trouble:

The Communist Party, at its Headquarters here, accepted re
sponsibility yesterday for the demonstration that resulted in the
bonus-army riots in Washington.

"We agitated for the bonus and led the demonstrations of the
veterans in Washington," a spokesman for the party said at the
headquarters at 50 East igth Street. "We stand ready to go to
Washington again and fight for the working men. We started the
march from here for Washington and we will lead the way again
in December."

Never before had General MacArthur faced such violent at
tacks. With President Hoover he was called an enemy of
the working man and of every unfortunate veteran. Mr.
Hoover 20 years later reduced the political consequences of
the action to a single paragraph in Vol. Ill of his memoirs:

The Democratic leaders did not organize the Bonus March nor
conduct the ensuing riots. But the Democratic organization seized
upon the incident with great avidity. Many Democratic speakers
in the campaign of 1932 implied that I had murdered veterans
on the streets of Washington. . . .

Even as late as 1949 Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt in her auto
biography in McCall's Magazine rekindled the long-smolder
ing hate and false accusations that had been heaped upon the
men who had handled the dangerous situation. Writing in
the July issue she said of the exciting period:

The first march, which had taken place in Mr. Hoover's ad«
ministration, was still painfully fresh in everybody's mind. I shall
never forget my feeling of horror when I realized that the Arn*>

14?

had actually been ordered to fire on the veterans. This one inci
dent shows what fear can make people do. Mr. Hoover was a
Quaker; and General MacArthur, his Chief of Staff, must have
known how many veterans would resent the order and never for
get it. He must have known too the effect it would have on public
opinion. Yet they dared do nothing else in the face of a situation
which frightened them.

The completely erroneous charge that "the Army had actu
ally been ordered to fire on the veterans" was fully an
swered in the November 1949 McC all's by the former Secre
tary of War, Patrick J. Hurley. But this reopening of old sores
17 years after the event proved once again the force of the
anger and resentment that had been engendered.

MacArthur's name had been constantly associated with
that of President Hoover's in the criticisms and reprisals that
continued for years. The distortion of MacArthur's part in the
singular affair was to become one of the myths that grew up
around him. Even the later sworn testimony of certain ex-
Ck>mmunists who had helped lead the demonstrations could
never quite overtake the bitterness that had been fastened on
the soldier.

In 1948 Benjamin Gitlow, admitted former Communist,
told of the Red plot in his book, The Whole of Their Lives.
He wrote:

On July 5 Earl Browder declared that the veterans were the
shock troops of the unemployed. Said he, "The Bonus revolution
ary force in Washington is the most significant beginning of
the mass struggle against the deepening consequences of the
crisis." . . .

On July 28 the government went into action. General Douglas
MacArthur, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, stepped in
to prevent serious bloodshed after a fight between communist-led
veterans and police resulted in the death of one veteran and the
shooting of an innocent bystander. It was just what the Com
munists wanted. It was what they had conspired to bring about.
Now they could brand Hoover as a murderer of hungry unem
ployed veterans. They could charge that the United States Army
was Wall Street's tool with which to crush the unemployed, and
that the government and the Congress of the United States were
bloody Fascist butchers of unarmed American workers.
146

A year later John T. Pace, another acknowledged former
Communist, told his story before a Congressional committee.
It would seem to clear up, once and for all, any doubts as to
who were the real conspirators and what was the true nature
of their plot. He testified:

I feel responsible in part for this often-repeated lie about Presi
dent Hoover and General MacArthur. . . .

I led the left-wing or Communist section of the bonus march.
I was ordered by my Red superiors to provoke riots. I was told to
use every trick to bring about bloodshed in the hopes that Presi
dent Hoover would be forced to call out the Army. The Com
munists didn't care how many veterans were killed. I was told
Moscow had ordered riots and bloodshed in the hopes that this
might set off the revolution. My Communist bosses were jumping
with joy on July 28 when the Washington police killed one vet
eran. The Army was called out by President Hoover and didn't
fire a shot or kill a man. General MacArthur put down a Moscow-
directed revolution without bloodshed, and that's why the Com
munists hate him even today. . . .

The last sentence deserves careful re-reading. It was the be
ginning of a definite and ceaseless campaign that set Mac-
Arthur apart from all the other high army officers as a man
to get, no matter how many years the Communists and their
friends and admirers had to wait or what methods they might
have to use.

MacArthur returned from a second survey of European armies
less than a month before the national elections of November
1932 which resulted in the utter defeat of the Republican
party. MacArthur realized that his immediate problem was to
hold together his little Army and then to remodel and modern
ize it, but he knew that he must face the increasingly bitter
opposition of the Ross Collins faction and their Senatorial
opposite numbers. He saw that now they would probably
have behind them the pressure and power of the new occu
pant of the White House. MacArthur did not have long to wait
for the opening attack.

Early in the year, during the lame duck session of the old

147

Congress, he appeared before the military sub-committee of
the Senate Appropriations Committee in opposition to the
Convery-Taber amendment to the Economy Act, which pro
posed to deny army retired pay to officers who were drawing
incomes of f 10,000 or more from private employers. It was all
a part of the drive to cut down officers' pensions, a plea that
had been bitterly debated in the Lower House. Ross Collins
and his followers there were demanding that no officer's re
tired pay be in excess of $2,400 a year. At the same time there
were attacks on the law that granted General of the Armies
John J. Pershing a special pension that totalled around $18,000
a year.

This latest attack was a little too much for MacArthur. He
vigorously addressed the members of the Senate Appropri
ations Committee, reminding them how the British Army re
warded their General Douglas Haig, who occupied a position
equivalent to General Pershing's in the American Army. Haig
was promoted to field marshal and awarded a bonus of ap
proximately half a million dollars in the form of a trust fund,
the income of which was to accrue to his family through a
period of three generations. In addition to this annual income
of around $30,000, he received during his lifetime an annuity
of $8,700 a year.

General Pershing, then 72, was spending the winter in Ari
zona. When word came to him of the fight that MacArthur
was putting up, he wrote him a personal note in his own hand
writing:

Tucson, Arizona
Feb. 23, 1933

General Douglas MacArthur,

Washington^ D. C.

Dear General:

Please allow me to send to you my warmest congratulations

upon the way you have succeeded in overcoming opposition in

Congress to the Army. I think you have much to be thankful

for, as we all have.
And may I also express my appreciation for the way you have

defended the Retired List and especially your reference to me.

Yours cordially,

John /. Pershing
148

As a matter of fact Pershing was a little previous with his
congratulations. Shortly after the inauguration of Franklin D.
Roosevelt on March 4, 1933, Lewis Douglas, Director of the
Budget, appeared in the role of the Army's chief opponent in
money matters. Previously Douglas, as a Congressman from
Arizona, had been one of the outstanding friends of the Army,
and his sudden about-face was of deep concern to Lt. Colonel
Irving J. Phillipson, the Chief of Staff's liaison officer with the
Congress and the Budget Office.

President Roosevelt's instructions to the Director of the
Budget were to balance the budget. Douglas, being intimately
familiar with Army costs, immediately turned to the Depart
ment of the Army for most of his initial savings.

During the last year of the Hoover administration a cut was
made in the pay of all members of the armed services. The
budget for the Army had already been brought down to what
seemed an irreducible minimum when the new administra
tion appeared with its drastic demands.

On March 28 the Budget Director announced that the
funds for the Regular Army and for service overhead for the
fiscal year beginning July i, 1933, should be cut 51% as com
pared to a normal annual appropriation; the National Guard
expenditures reduced 25%; the Organized Reserves 33%; the
Reserve Officers Training Corps 32%; the Citizens Military
Training Corps 36%; with a 75% loss to the National Board for
the Promotion of Rifle Practice. In addition he demanded of
the War Department that the information regarding the re
ductions should be kept secret.

It was at this moment that Providence seemed to take a
hand in the matter. On March 31 Congress authorized the es
tablishment of a Civilian Conservation Corps, with the num
ber of enlisted personnel initially fixed at 250,000 but soon
after raised to 300,000. The Army was charged with receiving
the applicants and organizing them into units which were to
be turned over to the Departments of Interior or Agriculture
for reforestation work and camp duty.

Within ten days the President saw that only the Army
could properly establish and administer the 1,450 camps that
were authorized, and he dumped the job in MacArthur's lap.

149

In an incredibly short time the Army was enrolling 8,500 CCC
recruits daily, and pushing them through a three-week con
ditioning course in which they received immunizing treat
ments, clothing and equipment. They were organized into
work companies of approximately 200 men each.

Seven weeks after the Army's concentration depots opened,
300,000 recruits had gone through the mill and some 1,315
camps were functioning. Each camp was under the direction of
two regular officers, one reserve officer and four enlisted men
of one of the regular establishmens. A total of 3,109 officers of
the Regular Army, 532 officers of the Regular Navy and Ma
rine Corps, and 1,774 reserve officers were required for this
special duty.

But despite the extraordinary accomplishment of the serv
ices there was no change in the critical attitude of the Di
rector of the Budget or of the anti-defense members of Con
gress. At the end of April 1933 MacArthur appeared before
the House Military Affairs Committee to oppose a bill that
would have placed a large number of regular officers on a
forced furlough list and reduced their semi-retired pay by
50% — in addition to the previous 15% cut in the pay of all
officers. The Chief of Staff pointed out that a second lieutenant
furloughed under the bill would receive exactly $54 a month.
It was the same old fight to cut back the Officer Corps, but under
a new guise and dress. Patiently MacArthur restated his argu
ments:

The foundation of our National Defense system is the Regular
Army, and the foundation of the Regular Army is the officer. He
is the soul of the system. If you have to cut everything out of the
National Defense Act (of 1920) the last element should be the
Officer Corps. If you had to discharge every soldier, if you had
to do away with everything else, I would still professionally ad
vise you to keep those 12,000 officers. They are the mainspring of
the whole mechanism; each one of them would be worth a thou
sand men at the beginning of a war. They are the only ones who
can take this heterogeneous mass and make of it a homogeneous
group. . . .

Nevertheless, the anti-army drive in Congress went stead
ily forward. It was a many-sided struggle. Behind the specious

150

argument that the issue was primarily one of saving money,
stood the hidden pressure of radical groups within the country
who were determined to make America impotent by cutting
away the underpinning of her national defense. Injecting itself
into this dangerous project was an organized pacifist move
ment, with the rank and file largely innocent of any real
wrongdoing but, nevertheless, influenced by Communist dupes
and sentimental busybodies.

From the political angle, apart from the direct secret Red
intrusion, it was evident to MacArthur that behind Congress
and its demands for economy stood the Director of the Budget
and behind him the President of the United States. To the
General it seemed that the one hope now of saving the Army
and particularly the Officer Corps and Reserves was a per
sonal appeal to the White House. He immediately asked for
an appointment with the President.

Roosevelt received him cordially and congratulated him on
the excellent work the Army was doing in establishing the
CCC camps. MacArthur explained that without the full Officer
Corps it could never have been accomplished. Yet, he went on,
there was still a concerted action to cut back the officer list. He
reviewed the dangerous situation that was developing in Ger
many and Italy and the steady march of the Japanese in Man
churia and China. It was unreasonable and might actually be
fatal to weaken the national defenses at this particular time.

The President, in turn, emphasized the need for the strict
est economy and the necessity of trying to balance the budget,
MacArthur agreed with the soundness of both items, but he
protested that it was dangerous to force the military services
to bear so much of the burden, while at the same time the new
social services were being expanded without limit.

But the President was obdurate. His conception of his almost
unlimited authority became evident as he argued that his Chief
of Staff must accept the decisions he had made. The cuts had
been ordered, and they must stand.

MacArthur argued that if they were carried out, the Army
would definitely be forced below the level of national safety.
The morale of the whole Army would suffer grievously and
the actual defense. of the nation would be in peril.

151

He insisted that he was in no way usurping civil authority.
Congress rightly held the purse strings of all expenditures.
But this was a matter of life or death for the armed forces and
the country. It was the President's duty to throw his great in
fluence on the side of national security.

Sharp words were exchanged. MacArthur, who had prided
himself all his life on his cool detachment in the face of con
flict, now felt his self-control begin to weaken. He was
conscious of the significance of the fight he was making. He
could not retreat in his arguments or in his demands. He felt
that his country's safety was at stake, and that if necessary
he would sacrifice his own professional career. His sense of
duty was clear and undeniable.

The President demanded the right to run national affairs
as he saw fit. He could not give in, nor could he brook this
personal interference.

The tension shortly reached the breaking point. Both men
were emotionally exhausted, yet neither would compromise.
Finally MacArthur played his last card.

He rose to his feet, and his voice was cold and deliberate.

"Mr. President," he said in effect, "if you pursue this policy,
which will lead inevitably to the destruction of the American
army, I have no other choice but to oppose you publicly. I
shall ask for my immediate relief as Chief of Staff and for
retirement from the Army, and I shall take this fight straight
to the people/'

It was a violent and unprecedented scene. Roosevelt was
beside himself with anger.

MacArthur saluted, turned on his heel and walked out of the
room. He was so incensed and wrought up that he was physi
cally ill on the White House lawn.

As he drove back to Number i Quarters at Fort Myer, he
was not at all sure but that the following day would see the
end of his army career. For he meant to do exactly what he
had threatened.

152

10
THE FIRST PENALTY FOR OPPOSITION

President Roosevelt never referred to this bitter personal en
counter. Instead, he quietly spread the word to drop the fight
for some of the proposed Army cuts; that the need of more
than 3,000 regular officers for special duty in the CCC camps
made it inadvisable to reduce the Officer Corps at this time.

MacArthur kept his victory strictly to himself. He realized
that he still faced strong opposition in Congress and in the
Bureau of the Budget, and in the New Deal experimenters
who were gathering around the White House.

As a matter of fact, his campaign for rebuilding the Army
was only started. Within the year he began to move toward
its attainment. Slowly he assumed the offensive, and one by
one he presented his long-range plans to Congress.

His first real triumph came when he succeeded in having
the sum of $5,000,000 allocated to the maintenance of the Na
tional Guard raised to $18,000,000. A second victory was an
allotment of $10,000,000 from the Public Works Administra
tion for partial motorization of the Field Artillery of both
regular and the national guard regiments and for motorizing
the field trains of the regular infantry divisions.

The roadblock set against the Army had now been partially
broken. But MacArthur had only a year left of his four-year
tour of duty as Chief of Staff in which to push through his
plans for a modern defense system. He might be able to make
it.

On June 13, 1933, he took time out to attend the 3Oth anni
versary of his class at West Point, and to make the commence
ment address. It was a wonderful day for him. He was talking
to his own people and at the place he loved more than any
other spot in the world. To the graduating class he said in
part:

153

Pacific habits do not insure peace nor immunity from national
insult and aggression. Any nation that would keep its self-respect
must keep alive its martial ardor and be prepared to defend it
self. . . .

The unabashed and unsound propaganda of the peace cranks
leads to muddled thinking.

As the necessity of national defense is sacrificed in the name of
economy, the United States presents a tempting spectacle. . . .

Every reasonable man knows that war is cruel and destructive,
and yet very little of the fever of war will melt the veneer of our
civilization.

History has proved that nations once great, that neglected
their national defense, are dust and ashes. Where are Rome and
Carthage? Where Byzantium? Where Egypt, once so great a state?

Where Korea, whose death cries were unheard by the world?

Let us be prepared lest we, too, perish.

His voice was hardly more than a whisper as he spoke these
final words. Then the mood changed, and he was once again
the old soldier pronouncing his blessings on his juniors.

Good luck, my dear young comrades-in-arms; happy landings,
and God be with you.

The cadets and officers and their friends who heard the
short address were never to forget his solemn and prophetic
words.

This day MacArthur was stirred by his ever-present convic
tion of the dangers his country faced and how tragically
unprepared she was. Nothing mattered to him but to awaken
Congress and the citizenry to the true situation. He approached
this great task with a devotion that had the quality of battle
ardor and sacrifice.

In a very real way he was thoroughly enjoying the job of
Chief of Staff, with its wide authority and its vast responsibil
ities. No previous Chief of Staff had possessed his peculiarly
persuasive talents for winning over a critical Congressional
Appropriations or Armed Services committee. In defending
his requests, or in presenting new requisitions, his sincere
and magnetic personality was utterly convincing in the im
pression it gave of insight and fairness. He exuded a feeling of
154

his own superb patriotism so that the things he asked tor ap
peared in that light and consequently had to be granted.

He had his own way o£ dealing with visiting Congressmen
and those seeking favors. If the requests could be granted
without harming the Army, he was inclined to give way to
them. If they were unreasonable or impossible, he was able
to make his refusal sound just and fair.

Officers going off on special missions or to distant assign
ments would often drop in at his office for possible last-min
ute instructions. Following this custom, Major Truman Smith,
who had just been appointed military attach^ at Berlin, re
ported to General MacArthur. It was the first time they had
met.

MacArthur received him most cordially and asked a
few questions regarding his highly important assignment to
Germany at this moment when Hitler was embarking on his
menacing rearmament program. At the end of the short in
terview Smith rose to leave.

"Just one little point," MacArthur concluded, his eyes twin
kling. "Don't take the British too seriously. Remember that no
one likes to sleep with a corpse."

Certainly he had his own quiet sense of humor, and with the
little crowd of officers who made up his official family he ex
hibited a warm, human side that the general public seldom
encountered. There was, for instance, the time that he and his
aide, Captain T. J. Davis, travelled in civilian clothes, on a
late afternoon train to New York. When the second call for
dinner was announced, Davis sent the porter back to the
dining-car steward with the request to let them know when a
table was available. When the word came and they entered the
car, the steward somehow mistook T.J. for MacArthur. With
elaborate courtesy he addressed the aide as General and led
him to the reserved table. MacArthur took the cue and showed
marked deference to his subordinate, addressing him as Gen
eral and sirring him at every opportunity. And when the meal
was over, he complimented the steward, thanking him for tak
ing such good care of "my General."

His office hours were still of the same unusual pattern that
he adopted when he became superintendent of West Point

155

Often he would remain in his office until 7 or 8 in the evening,
and it was not uncommon at the end of a busy day for his aide,
Captain Davis, Lt. Colonel Phillipson and his special aide,
Major Ike Eisenhower, and possibly the Deputy Chief of Staff,
to remain behind while he walked up and down in his office
relating old stories told him by his father, or dipping into the
rich memories of his own experiences in France and the Far
East.

All during his life the lore and romantic details of the Army
had seeped into his conscious and subconscious being. Fellow
officers used to say that when he went to France in 1917 as
chief of staff of the 42nd Infantry Division, he had already
fought in two wars — the Civil War and the Spanish-American
War. Certainly he knew intimately every battle and every
leader of the great civil conflict that ended almost fifteen
years before he was born.

And now in these early 19305 he was quietly preparing for
what seemed to be the making of World War II. He spent
most of his evenings poring over reports of American military
attaches in foreign countries and studying the British and
French military journals and the translations from service arti
cles gleaned from publications of all the various European ar
mies. Returning travelers who had found interesting details
of foreign military matters were always welcome in his office.

One afternoon Brigadier General Henry J. Reilly, of the old
Rainbow Division, steered into the General's office a former
war correspondent [the author] who had known MacArthur
since his brilliant days in France. The visitor had just returned
from a tour of Manchuria and Siberia, and rumors of a possible
Russo-Japanese war were still making headlines.

The correspondent, who had had considerable experience
in various parts of Russia and Siberia during the early days of
the Revolution, told what he had seen of troop movements
and military activities in his latest visit to Siberia. He re
ported on the possible strength of garrisons in Vladivostok
and along the Manchurian border and in other Far Eastern
cities and key points, but somehow it didn't quite seem to
jell. In disgust at his own failure to give accurate figures and
details, the visitor finally blurted out that at least there was
156

one thing that he was sure of — the morale o£ the Russian sol
diers.

MacArthur pounded the table with his fist. "That's what I
want to know!" he declared enthusiastically. "All this other
makes no difference. It's the morale of the Red soldier I'm in
terested in. That's all that really counts. Go ahead!"

For an hour and a half the correspondent poured out the
facts he had learned first-hand when he had covered the
U. S. North Russian and Siberian Expeditions from 1918 to
1920, as well as the bitter revolutionary days in Moscow and
Leningrad. He told of what he had learned on other trips, and
on this latest study of Siberia. The Russian soldiers would
fight, he swore. They were brave and ready to die if their
country was invaded. And far more of them had been true
converts to the Revolution than the outside world realized.

It was strong medicine for the American Chief of Staff,
but he instinctively understood that inherent in the young Red
soldier there was a stubborn love of Mother Russia, and that
he would fight for this native land regardless of the type of
flag she flew.

MacArthur, the realist, was not afraid to face new truths,
no matter how harsh and distasteful they might be. His alert
and far-seeing mind constantly searched for the things of the
inner spirit, especially when they concerned the national
dreams that help make up the imponderables of a country's
military strength. He did not need to judge the merits of the
Russian Revolution to understand the depth of the change that
had taken place in millions of men there.

And he believed fully in Napoleon's dictum that morale
is to all other factors as four is to one.

MacArthur was now well into his fourth year as head of the
Army. He was making definite progress with his difficult and
involved promotion bill and with other plans for the gen
eral improvement of the service and its fighting ability. He
was again a welcome visitor at the White House, and every
now and again the President would ask him over for a quiet,

157

confidential chat. Roosevelt seemed to enjoy the range and
independence of the soldier's mind and viewpoint. Now and
again they would discuss some phase of the Roosevelt social
programs, and MacArthur made no effort to conceal his opposi
tion to certain of the ideas that were being put forward by such
radical New Dealers as Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes and
Aubrey Williams.

What alarmed MacArthur was the definite turning away by
the new administration from certain old concepts of strict con
stitutional government, with more and more power being con
centrated in the hands of the Chief Executive. MacArthur had
been brought up a strict constitutionalist, and he was deeply
concerned over the somewhat radical turn of affairs resulting
from the growing power of the leftist New Dealers. He made
little effort to hide his alarm from the President.

Shortly before one of his informal meetings with the Presi
dent, MacArthur had encountered a fresh outburst of ex
treme opposition to his promotion bill. A subsequent White
House interview drifted into the matter of growing expendi
tures in the New Deal social program, and finally MacArthur
spoke up rather sharply. He told the President that naturally
he was honored the President should ask his opinion regard
ing the reforms and various socialization proposals under con
sideration, and he was flattered to find out that often Mr.
Roosevelt accepted his views.

"You seem willing to ask my advice about almost everything
except military matters," he continued rather tersely. "Why
is this, Mr. President?"

The President, not the least disconcerted, replied after a
pause, "Douglas, you are my American conscience."

But matters were not always so pleasant and amiable be
tween the two men. Early in February 1934 there was con
siderable public comment on the graft revelations that had
touched the commercial airplane lines carrying air mail. Sud
denly and without consulting MacArthur, the President or
dered that the air mail contracts be cancelled and that this
highly specialized task be turned over to the Army Air Corps.
American army planes were not equipped for night or blind
flying. Nor were army pilots familiar with the mail routes.
158

They had only one-way radio equipment, and from the very
start of the assignment there were fatal accidents. So much
criticism poured into the White House that within a month
the President decided to rescind his order and return the
mail contracts to the private firms under certain restrictions he
would ask Congress to grant.

In endorsing the proposed legislation the President wrote a
letter to the Chairman of the House Post Office Committee in
which he said that before he had cancelled the private air
mail contracts he had received definite assurances from the
General Staff that the Army could successfully carry the mails.

At once John Callan O'Laughlin, editor of the Army if Navy
Journal, wrote out the details of a formal interview that he
had had with ex-Senator Hiram Bingham, President of the
National Aeronautical Society. Bingham demanded to know
what army officer had given such assurances. Certainly, he in
sisted, General MacArthur, Chief of the General Staff, had not
given them.

Immediately copies of the interview were handed out to
various newspaper correspondents at the National Press Club,
and one of them hurried to the White House with the damag
ing information. Secretary of War Bern, General MacArthur
and General Benjamin D. Foulois, head of the Air Corps, were
all at the Secretary's office in the War Department when the
President contacted Dern on the phone. After a few minutes
of conversation Dern turned to MacArthur and said: "The
President says you phoned him the assurance that the Air
Corps could carry the mails before he issued the cancellation
orders."

MacArthur emphatically denied he had done so and asked
permission to speak to the President.

"I'm glad to talk with you, Douglas," the President began
in his most disarming manner. "I've been thinking about you
and how well everything is going in the War Department.
You remember you phoned me before I cancelled the air-mail
contracts and said the Air Corps could carry the mails and
would be glad to undertake it."

MacArthur replied: "Mr. President, I dislike intensely say
ing what I am going to say, but I never telephoned you. I

159

knew nothing about your plan to have the Air Corps carry the
mails."

"But you are mistaken, Douglas," replied the President.
"You phoned me, as I have said."

"No, Mr. President. The only time I saw you about the
matter was yesterday, when you called General Foulois and me
to the White House and gave us a spanking."

"But Marvin Mclntyre [the President's Secretary] put your
call through to me," Roosevelt insisted.

"Will you put Mr. Mclntyre on the phone?" MacArthur re
quested. Thereupon the President hung up the receiver.

A few minutes later Mclntyre appeared at the War Depart
ment, and hurried into the Chief of Staff's office. "General,
don't you remember you phoned me, I connected you with
the President, and you said the Air Corps could carry the
mails?"

MacArthur walked over to where Mclntyre was standing
and glared down at him. His face was white with anger. "Do
you mean to say," he demanded, "that I phoned you and asked
to talk to the President and then gave him the assurance you
describe?"

Mclntyre wilted. "No, I suppose I'm wrong," he replied.
And then he added: "But Steve Early said you gave that mes
sage."

"Where is Early? Bring him down here," MacArthur almost
shouted, striding up and down the room in an effort to restrain
his temper.

"He is not available tonight," Mclntyre finally answered.
He realized that the jig was up, and reluctantly added: "I'm
afraid what he actually said was that you would be a good
sport and see that the mails were carried all right."

Some time before this episode MacArthur had found himself
in an embarrassing situation regarding Colonel George C.
Marshall. Pershing had suggested to MacArthur that his
former aide, who had done fine staff work in France, be made
a brigadier general, MacArthur had only recently set up a
16Q

special promotion board to recommend colonels for the grade
of general officer, and he assured his old commander that he
would immediately present Marshall's name to the board.

Marshall, who had only recently reached the grade of full
colonel, had been shifted from his post of assistant com
mandant of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, to
the command of the fine 8th Infantry at Fort Moultrie near
Charlestown, South Carolina. Most of his past military career
had been spent not in command posts but as student or in
structor in service schools or on staff duty or as special aide to
General Pershing. He knew it was important now to balance
his one-sided record by this particular tour of duty with troops.

The 8th Infantry, which had long enjoyed an enviable rep
utation as a top regiment, consisted at the moment of two
separate battalions with only a single battalion and head
quarters at Fort Moultrie. The situation was a bit difficult for
maintaining esprit de corps, and Marshall's activities were
further complicated by the added job of superintending the
numerous CCC camps that were being opened in his area.
This latter task seemed to appeal to Marshall, and he spent a
large part of his time on the project. So noticeable was his
ardor and success in the camp work that it came to the atten
tion of certain high politicians and Brain Trusters in Washing
ton who were involved in the whole Roosevelt social program.
Certain friendly connections which resulted, and which seemed
far-fetched at the time, were subsequently to prove of great
value to Colonel Marshall.

When he had been with his regiment less than a year, an
Inspector General from Washington visited the post. His re
sultant official report stated that the training program of the
regiment was not satisfactory and that the entire outfit had
seriously deteriorated under Colonel Marshall's command. The
report arrived at the very moment he was being considered
for promotion, and it destroyed any immediate chance Mar
shall might have had of being chosen a brigadier general by
the special promotion board.

It so happened that about this same time Major General
Roy Keene of the National Guard of Illinois came to Washing
ton to talk over with the Chief of Staff the idea o£ a new

senior instructor for the ggrd National Guard Division. Gen
eral Keene was a powerful figure in Guard circles, and Mac-
Arthur wanted to show him every courtesy. When Keene in
sisted that he wanted a top man to work with the Illinois
division, MacArthur told him that he could have the best
officer in the Army.

Calling in Major General Edward Croft, chief of infantry,
MacArthur asked him who was the best colonel of infantry
available for this type of special service.

'I'd say George Marshall/* General Croft answered without
hesitation.

"Send him to the Illinois Guard," Qeneral MacArthur
promptly ordered.

The assignment carried a handsome special pay allowance,
and although Colonel Marshall would definitely have pre
ferred to remain in command of regular troops, he had no
alternative. Years later in her book of army memoirs entitled
Together, Mrs. Marshall wrote feelingly of the Colonel's dis
appointment regarding the orders, but added that later he
grew to be genuinely fond of Chicago and his assignment
there.

As a matter of fact, it all worked out in favor of Marshall.
He became a close friend of the Judge Advocate of the 3grd
Division, Scott Lucas, who later became a United States Sen
ator. As a member of the powerful Senate Armed Services
Committee, Senator Lucas was able to be of inestimable value
in helping to push forward George Marshall's career.

In years to come there was much speculation why Mac-
Arthur, despite the set-back due to the unfortunate adverse
report by the Inspector General, had not later, and while he
was still Chief of Staff, recommended Marshall to be made a
general officer. The facts were that at this time the army was
small and promotion was so slow that Marshall was almost at
the bottom of the list of colonels. But MacArthur, with his
shrewd knowledge of army affairs, might have wangled the
promotion, if he had been deeply concerned — which, obviously,
he was not. [Three years later, when Malin Craig was Army
Chief of Staff, Colonel Marshall was promoted to brigadier
general of the line. It was army gossip that General Pershing
162

had gone directly to the President and urged this action. On
September i, 1939, Marshall was made Chief of Staff. Robert
E. Sherwood, in his book, Roosevelt and Hopkins, contributes
a very significant note regarding the high appointment, when
he describes General Marshall as a man "for whom Hopkins
had profound respect and whose appointment as Chief of
Staff he had strongly recommended."]

Just how much this MacArthur-Marshall episode had to do
with later events may never be correctly appraised. It was only
human that a number of officers, including Marshall, should
have been envious of the rapid promotion and the fame that
came to MacArthur during and after World War I. Many
worthy officers in France failed to receive even the temporary
promotions they deserved, because the orders to Pershing from
Washington forbade additional promotions after the Armis
tice. MacArthur, himself, had been recommended for two
stars, and a large number of temporary colonels, among them
George Marshall, were on the verge of being made temporary
brigadier generals when the Armistice had intervened. Once
back in the United States, all but a handful of specially favored
officers were reduced to their normal permanent rank. This
ruling forced Colonel Marshall back to his rank of major,
where slow promotion under the strict seniority rule kept
him for some time before he became a lieutenant colonel. Yet
professionally he was one of the better known officers in the
Army. The war had been over 13 years before he reached the
rank of full colonel.

Temporary Brigadier General MacArthur, however, had not
been busted back to his permanent rank of lieutenant colonel
in 1919, and in February 1920 during his first year as super
intendent at West Point he had been made a permanent
brigadier general. Five years later he was made a major gen
eral, and at 50 was chosen Chief of Staff. It is easy to under
stand how less fortunate men might nurse envy of this man of
apparent destiny.

So it was that MacArthur never could quite cope with the
all-too-human criticism often levelled against him. No matter
how generous and painstaking he was regarding rank and as
signment, there was often no way he could balance the in-

163

equalities and differences in rank. As Chief of Staff he was
deeply concerned in doing everything he could to help in
dividual officers, and there are innumerable stories told about
his interest and regard for those under him and his eagerness
to undo any injustice they may have suffered. One incident
illustrates the nature of his personal concern.

Toward the end of his second year as Chief of Staff, a young
West Point graduate and his wife, detailed to foreign service,
had become involved in a very silly and unfortunate episode
which although of an entirely innocent nature had put them
in an extremely unfortunate light. Through a curious chain of
circumstances, the young lieutenant -had been tried on charges
of "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman," con
victed and sentenced to be discharged from the service.

A West Point classmate of the unhappy officer, then on duty
in the United States, was appealed to, and he hurried to Wash
ington and the War Department. It was his first visit, and in
despair over the fate of his brother officer he approached Cap
tain T. J. Davis, General MacArthur's aide, and blurted out
the story of his unfortunate classmate.

The sympathetic aide told him to calm down, that he would
try to get him ten minutes with the Chief of Staff. The young
officer was admitted to the General's office, made to feel at ease
and asked to explain the nature of his visit.

He was to stay ten minutes; he stayed over an hour. Mac-
Arthur was appalled at the harshness of the court's verdict.
He asked for the papers in the case and after studying them
promptly disapproved the findings, declaring the evidence was
insufficient to merit such severity, and he at once reinstated
the officer.

MacArthur had yet to succeed in his constructive plan for an
effective Army. His Third Annual Report carried the final out
lines for this Four-Army Plan, bringing the 9 corps areas into
four great tactical armies, each with its own field army organi
zation set up in skeleton form, and each commanded by the
senior corps commander in that particular army territory.
164

Each of the four army commanders was to organize the frame
work for an actual field army staff that could be expanded
immediately in case of an emergency.

With this Four-Army Plan went a G.H.Q. Air Force,
that comprised an actual striking air force of 1,000 planes
or more under the direct responsibility and command of the
Chief of Staff. No senior officer in the United States Army had
previously so fully appreciated the enormous striking potential
of airplanes or shown the courage and imagination to un
shackle them from ground commanders. America was now on
the road that led toward at least some degree of national
security.

Time was running out for MacArthur, for his term as Chief
of Staff would end November 21, 1934. But on November 14
the President announced at a press conference that MacArthur
would be continued as Chief of Staff for an indefinite period,
and later Roosevelt directed Secretary of War Dem to keep
MacArthur on until the War Department had completed its
legislative program with the coming Congress. It seems that
Pershing had personally recommended this move to the Presi
dent.

MacArthur dramatically put forth his final requests. The
Public Works Administration had already allotted $90,000,000
to the Army, with 154,000,000 earmarked for an army con
struction program. MacArthur now asked for $405,000,000 for
new army housing, mechanization and motorization, anti-air
craft equipment and aircraft and modernization of field artil
lery. He pointed out that the enlisted strength of the regular
army must be increased to 165,000 men, the Officers' Reserve
Corps strengthened and the National Guard enlarged. In addi
tion, he requested that the number of cadets at West Point
be increased from 1,371 to 1,960.

Long before this he had suggested that the boys in the
hundreds of CCC camps be given some army training and dis
cipline. But the radical planners around the White House
quickly squelched this idea. The fact that the CCC boys were
receiving $30 a month, while the pay of the soldiers of the
Regular Army was $21 monthly, did not strike them as at all
unfair.

165

A$ late as February 20, 1935, Mac Arthur made a new pro
posal to the House Military Affairs Committee regarding a
small amount of army training in the camps:

I think there would be nothing finer than that the men in the
CCC camps should be used as a nucleus for an Enlisted Reserve.

I think no method could be sounder than to take these CCG
men who have had six months in camp and give them perhaps
two months more, in which they would receive military training.
We could enroll them in the Enlisted Reserve for a certain num
ber of years, with, perhaps a small stipend — say one dollar a
month.

If he had been guilty of a crime against his country, Mac-
Arthur could not have brought down on his head more bitter
criticism from the pacifist-minded advisors of the President.

Early in March 1935 MacArthur was forced to take another
definite stand against the President. This time it was in direct
opposition to the expanding powers of the Chief Executive.

In the $375,000,000 Army Appropriations Bill presented to
the Senate Appropriations Committee was a promise that the
enlisted strength of the Regular Army would be increased from
1 18,000 men to a maximum of 165,000, but it was provided that
the President should have absolute control over the size of the
Army. MacArthur — whose passion had long been the Constitu
tion — immediately addressed the Congressional committee on
this vital precedent:

It has never been done before in the history of our country.

We have the most complete confidence the President would im
mediately order the increase, but this places a burden upon the
Executive Branch.

Army strength questions have always been decided by Congress.
If Congress should leave such an authority to the President, we
should have to go before him and in effect have these hearings
all over again.

The President, splendid soldier as he is, and understanding
the problems of National defense as he does, cannot be expected
to make decisions which have not only involved the professional
thought of the Army for years, but have engaged the attention
of the Congressional Committees for weeks and months at a time.

If you multiply such instances and continue to load on the
166

President the technical details, jiot only of the War Department
but of other departments^ you are going to break down the Gov
ernment.

It was a smooth and politic way of presenting his violent
objections. It seems certain that he was prepared to go to any
limit in opposing the measure that would have advanced im
measurably the growing concentration of power in the hands
of the President. Fortunately the committee was won over,
and the raid was checked.

There were no reprisals from the White House. MacArthur
apparently was to be kept on until the end of his fifth year. On
September 7, the day before Secretary of War Dern left for
Manila to witness the inauguration of the Philippine Common
wealth, Dern called MacArthur into his office and in a surprise
ceremony pinned an Oak Leaf cluster on his Distinguished
Service Medal. At the same time Dern made the formal an
nouncement that he would make no recommendation regard
ing MacArthur's successor until he returned from Manila in
mid-December 1935.

During MacArthur's last two tours of duty in the Islands
he and Manuel Quezon, then speaker of the House of Repre
sentatives and leader of the independence movement, had
often discussed the problem of Philippine security. In the
summer of 1935, while Quezon was in Washington arrang
ing for the formal establishment of the Commonwealth, he
suddenly appeared in the Chief of Staff's office. Bluntly he asked
MacArthur if he thought the Islands could defend themselves
once they gained their full independence in 1946.

"I don't only think they can be defended," MacArthur an
swered; "I know they can/'

Quez6n immediately asked if he would be willing to come
to the Philippines and act as military advisor during the com
ing six years of his presidency. MacArthur agreed, if Quezon
could secure the approval of the Secretary of War and the Presi
dent.

MacArthur still had almost 9 years of active army service in
front of him, but to accept a subordinate assignment in the
Army after being Chief of Staff would be difficult. The Quezon

167

proposal seemed to offer an ideal solution to the problem of
his own professional career if it could be so arranged with his
two superiors. Half the battle already was won, thanks to a
law recently passed by Congress authorizing the detailing of
Army and Navy officers for special duty with certain foreign
powers, which later included service in the new Common
wealth.

Quez6n had no difficulty gaining the full approval of both
the Secretary of War and the President. The formal press re
lease regarding the appointment, however, was held up until
the news of Quez6n's actual election as President of the Com
monwealth government, which occurred the day before Sec
retary Bern's departure for Manila. Mac Arthur would leave
Washington September 30. The press release concluded with
the positive statement that he would not be relieved as Chief
of Staff until December 15.

This would give him a little more than a month after his
arrival in Manila to lay out his detailed plans, which included
the utilization of U. S. Army forces of the Department of the
Philippines in the training and equipping of the native
draftees. His objective was the ultimate use of the Islands'
forces as an integral part of a great Philippine defensive system
to be built during the ten years before 1946, when full inde
pendence would come. It was a matter of major importance to
MacArthur that for a full month he would possess all the au
thority of Chief of Staff to project his ideas without obstruction
or delay.

A formal but confidential letter was sent to MacArthur by
the Adjutant General giving a secret special ruling that he
was to be permitted to remain undisturbed on the assignment
for a six-year period. It seemed that every possibility of error
or slip-up had now been covered.

Two weeks before he was to leave Washington, MacArthur
was invited to Hyde Park for a private luncheon with the
President. When the two were alone, Roosevelt explained that
the Governor General of the Philippines, Frank Murphy, was
not interested in becoming first high commissioner to the Com
monwealth government. Would Douglas be interested in hav
ing the important post?
168

MacArthur replied that he was deeply honored, but he could
not leave the Army. He had pledged Quez6n that he would
help him build his defense system, and he could hardly go back
on this solemn promise.

"Maybe you could do both/' the President suggested.

MacArthur answered that if it could be arranged so that he
could still remain in the Army and advise Quezon, he'd be
proud to be the first high commissioner to the Philippines.

The President told him to get a special ruling from the
judge advocate whether he could fill the two appointments.
As soon as MacArthur returned to Washington, he put the
matter in the judge advocate's hands. A day or two later he
received the verdict: It was illegal for an officer to hold two
government positions at the same time.

MacArthur immediately wrote a personal note to the Presi
dent and gave him the negative decision. A little later Frank
Murphy, hearing that MacArthur had been approached by the
President, changed his mind and agreed to accept the post of
high commissioner.

During the years MacArthur had served as Chief of Staff his
mother had lived with him in the Number i Quarters at Fort
Myer, across the Potomac in Virginia. Her health had steadily
declined to such an extent that she had been able to act as
hostess at only one or two of the few official dinners the Gen
eral had been obliged to give. His widowed sister-in-law, Mary
McCulla MacArthur, had not only graciously taken his
mother's place but throughout these five years had spent a
great deal of time in helping to care for her. The General had
removed himself from all personal contact with social Wash
ington, save only for the half-dozen official dinners and recep
tions that his position required him to attend each year.

From the very beginning of his discussions with Quezon,
the General had made one stipulation concerning his appoint
ment to Manila; he would accept the proposal only if his
mother were well enough to go with him.

When he tentatively brought up the subject with her, Mrs.

169

MacArthur insisted that the sea voyage and the bright warm
days in Manila would do her good. Mary was appealed to,
and she agreed to accompany them. Whatever happened, the
mother insisted, Douglas must not be deprived of this golden
opportunity to do a great and lasting thing for his country
and for himself.

* The General called in Major Howard Hutter o£ the Army
Medical Corps, who had long been a devoted physician to Mrs.
MacArthur. The doctor described fully to him the exact con
dition of his 8 g-year-old mother. She was suffering from a
chronic heart trouble, and there was absolutely nothing medi
cally that could be done for her. The journey to Manila would
make no change in her general condition, and life could be as
gentle for her there as anywhere else. He had no professional
objections to her going.

The last obstacle had now been removed. The General
thanked him and then explained the great work that could be
accomplished by the mission. Would Major Hutter come along
as general medical advisor in such matters as passing on the
sanitary side of the training camps and the health of the re
cruits in the new Philippine Army? The doctor, devoted as he
was to the General's mother, and thrilled by the prospects of
the imaginative and important work ahead, promptly accepted.

So it was that final plans were concluded for the great under
taking. With MacArthur would go a small official staff, con
sisting of Majors D wight D. Eisenhower and James Ord, both
of the West Point Class of 1915, Dr. Howard Hutter, the per
sonal aide Captain T. J. Davis and one or two enlisted clerks.

Major Eisenhower would be chief of staff of the military
mission, with Major Ord as his deputy. Eisenhower had just
turned 45 and though he had not seen active service in France
in the World War, he had won for himself a place as one of
the outstanding younger army officers. Major General Fox
Conner, G-g of the A.E.F., who furnished much of the driving
power of Pershing's war machine, had taken a great interest
in Eisenhower when the latter had served under him in the
Canal Zone. Somewhere along the line Ike had acquired a
canny and unique ability; he was graduated at the top of his
class in the gruelling two-year course at the Command and
170

General Staff School in Leavenworth; he had served under
Pershing in post-war France and prepared a commendable
brochure on the American Battle Monuments; his talent for
writing speeches and reports had brought him the post of
special aide to the assistant secretary of war; and he had added
to his general qualifications by attending the Industrial War
College.

MacArthur had brought him into the Chief of Staff's office
late in 1932, and here he had quickly made himself all but
indispensable. He had the rare faculty of being able to put
down on paper the exact shade of meaning that his superior
desired. "Ike got so he could write more like MacArthur
talked than the General did himself/' was the way one officer
who served on the General Staff at the time explained it. His
mind was sharp and keen, and he had been perfectly trained
in staff work. He was to serve seven years in the closest contact
with General MacArthur.

A few days before the departure of the mission from Wash
ington MacArthur phoned the White House for an appoint
ment to pay his final respects to Roosevelt.

The President received him with even more than his or
dinary kindness. He was generous in his appreciation of the
magnificent work the soldier had done for his country and for
him personally. Finally the General arose to say good-bye.

The President looked up at him, and his voice sounded
strong and warm with emotion.

"Douglas," he said slowly, "if war should suddenly come,
don't wait for orders to return home. Grab the first transporta
tion you can find. I want you to command my armies/'

It seemed a gracious thing for Roosevelt to say. It was the
final nod of professional approval, and no words could have
meant more to the officer who was about to relinquish his high
command.

Obviously MacArthur had a great deal for which to be
proud and thankful. Ahead of him lay a difficult task that
might some day prove to be of supreme importance to his own
country as well as to the Islands he loved so deeply. It was
fortunate that he had the official sanction and orders to con
tinue as Chief of Staff until several weeks after he arrived in

171

Manila. This would give him time to lay out a plan whereby
eventually the U. S. Regular Army forces in the Islands could
be used in a variety of ways to help build and train the new
Philippine army reserve. It was of considerable importance,
too, that Secretary of War Bern was to be with him in Manila
at the start.

Captain Davis secured for the party a piivate Pullman car
that went straight through from Washington to San Francisco.
When the Union Pacific train pulled into Cheyenne, the group
was joined by Major Eisenhower, whose wife and small son
were temporarily remaining in Denver. Mac Arthur stepped
down from the car for a short walk on the station platform.
He had made only one or two turns alongside the train when a
young man approached in the dim light and asked him if he
was General MacArthur.

"I'm a reporter from the paper here, and we just got news
you were on this train/' he explained, when he had been as
sured that he had found the right man. "What do you think
of the appointment of General Craig as the new Chief of
Staff?"

MacArthur smiled down at the young man and never batted
an eye. Obviously the solemn pledge approved by the Presi
dent had been broken.

"There couldn't have been a better appointment," he an
swered. "General Craig is a splendid officer and a fine gentle
man."

At this moment the station agent hurried up with a yellow
envelope in his hand. He recognized the General and handed
him the telegram.

The bell was ringing on ahead and the porter was motion
ing him to board his car. He walked slowly back to his apart
ment and opened the envelope, that had been sent care of the
ticket agent at Cheyenne. The message read:

The following telegram just received and since it conveys a
message to you I am transmitting the same herewith quote I have
detailed today Major General Malin Craig effective this date,
to succeed General Douglas MacArthur, relieved this date as
Chief of Staff of the United States Army, with rank of General.
I have also signed the recess commission appointing General
172

Craig to the office of Chief of Staff. Please instruct the Adjutant
General to issue the orders necessary to conform with the action
I have taken. I have decided to make this appointment before I
sail today on the Houston. Please extend to General MacArthur
an expression of my gratitude and appreciation of his excellent
service so exceptional that I called upon him to continue to per
form the duties of that office almost a year after the regular four-
year detail had been completed. I am forwarding to you the order
with the commission signed Franklin D. Roosevelt unquote. As
acting Secretary of War I want again to express my deep regard
of your unexcelled service to the nation, the National Defense
and the Army in the high position you are relinquishing.

Harry H. Woodring

Acting Secretary of War

So the President had gone back on the agreement that Mac-
Arthur was not to be relieved until December 15. And now
it would be infinitely more difficult to do the job of creating an
efficient Philippine Army that would act as a priceless reserve
in trained manpower for America when it was needed. Mac-
Arthur had counted heavily on his first month in Manila when
he would still have had all the power and prestige of the
Chief of Staff of the United States Army to back him up. Now
he would have to do the best he could without it.

It was some time later that he learned the details of his
sudden and mysterious relief by the President. Roosevelt had
left Washington by special train for California a day before the
MacArthur party. Accompanying him was Hugh Johnson,
WPA administrator, who at the moment was in high favor
with President Roosevelt. As a shavetail officer and classmate
of MacArthur's, Lieutenant Johnson was assigned to a cavalry
troop commanded by Malin Craig, West Point 1898. Later
Craig had been looked upon with favor by Pershing's
Chaumont clique. He had been chief of staff of a corps in
France, and had been made a brigadier general of the Regular
Army in 1921 — two years after MacArthur, who was younger,
got his permanent promotion to that grade.

Hugh Johnson had always kept in close contact with his
old company commander, and now here on a special train
California-bound, with world conditions in a precarious con-

173

dition, the WPA administrator went to great lengths to con
vince the President that it was unsafe for both the Chief of
Staff and the Secretary of Wat to be out of the country at the
same time. Why not relieve MacArthur at once? He knew the
very man for Chief of Staff — Major General Malin Craig.

And so it was that the energetic and pushing Hugh John
son — who had been a sort of self -delegated rival of Mac-
Arthur's at West Point — talked President Roosevelt into sum
marily relieving MacArthur, regardless of the official orders
that he was not to be replaced until mid-December. This con
scienceless double-cross was in the end to deal a damaging
blow to the building of America's strength in the Far East.

It might be a slight exaggeration to refer to MacArthur's as
signment to the Philippines as a deliberately planned exile.
But in many ways it proved to be exactly that.

Once in Manila he would no longer be a constant thorn i&
the side of the radical Brain Trusters who were moving Roose
velt more and more to the left and toward a semi-socialist
state. These men were aware of the unusually strange relation
ship that existed between the President and General MacArthur.
Roosevelt in all the years to come never quite lost his initial
admiration for the extraordinary intelligence and pure patri
otic motives of MacArthur, despite the President's frequent
bitter words of criticism. The General might often oppose
him and refuse to bend to his whims and wishes, but »there
could never be any serious doubt in Roosevelt's mind concern
ing his honor and his unique abilities. (Long after the Presi
dent's death, and when he had finally returned home, Mac-
Arthur was to say, "Roosevelt was not my nemesis.")

To the White House hangers-on who were primarily in
terested in their hold on the President, the soldier had often
stood as a roadblock to their designs. Once he was planted in
the Philippines, he could be cut off and isolated from the
President, and his strong influence could end. He could be
given the silent treatment — as heartbreaking and deadly as the
174

silence that had a few times been given to unethical army
officers at West Point by the Corps of Cadets.

But his exile was by no means as simple or innocuous as all
this. Already there were ominous portents and influences at
work in Washington which had been spawned with President
Roosevelt's 1933 recognition of the Soviet Union. At once
secret groups friendly or actually subservient to the Soviets
began to exert pressure on the government in behalf of the
Kremlin. Apparently it was important for them to have Mac-
Arthur and his definitely patriotic authority over the Army
far removed from Washington.

The extent and true purpose of the slowly expanding Red-
sponsored intrigues in Washington were still concealed, but
time was to bring to light certain parts of the subversive plots
within America and elsewhere. The Soviets' interference with
other countries had long been serious.

Back in the early '20'$ the Soviet Union had failed in her
attempt to win over Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang
party, and the Russian political-military mission was driven
out of China. But it left behind a vigorous and determined
Communist-Chinese group, which Chiang was never quite able
fully to eliminate.

Eventually, when World War II had been going on for some
months in Europe, Russia effected a 5-year non-aggression pact
with Japan. This guaranteed that Russia would not have to fight
a two-front war if, and when, Germany attacked her. So far as
the Soviets were concerned, it gave Japan a free hand in China,
enabling the Japs to turn south and drive down the China Sea
and through the Philippines to the fabulous wealth of Southeast
Asia and the Dutch East Indies.

As a part of this Communist plan was the need of keeping
the Philippines weak, so that Japan would be encouraged to
turn her back on Siberia and someday plunge into a great adven*
ture to the southward.

America, traditional friend of China and Chiang Kai-shek,
opposed Japan's expanding invasion of the Asiatic mainland and
her eventual turn southward, but failed to build up the military
power in the Philippines that could have been a natural de
terrent.

m

In very simple terms, it had for years been to Russia's ad
vantage to keep Japan interested in her southern march so that
Russia need have little fear for her own Far Eastern frontier
in case Germany suddenly struck. To keep the Philippines
weak — while secretly turning Japan to southern conquests —
was part of her plot. MacArthur had no way of knowing all the
sources of opposition to him and his patriotic efforts in the
Philippines. What passed for years as little more than a delib
erate personal unconcern and a refusal on the part of certain
high officials in the General Staff and in the government to aid
MacArthur may have had behind it secret and unrecognized
forces of foreign and home intrigue.

There seems no doubt that MacArthur fully realized how final
and conclusive his present assignment to the Far Pacific
would be. Unless war came, his plan was to remain there six
years, although actually the entire Philippine military pro
gram would involve ten years. He seemed now to be tied for
good and all into the destinies of these Islands and of the Far
East.

Japan was obviously the immediate potential enemy in the
highly explosive period of the middle 19305. Her march into
the heart of China seemed relentless and irresistible. Her mili
tarists apparently had a death grip on the government and to
all practical purposes were in control though the Emperor
often offered a sturdy resistance to them.

Japan's appeal to great portions of the brown races of the
vast southeastern areas of Asia was genuine and incontestable.
Her gradually maturing Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was
pleasant bait to many native peoples in contrast to the ex
ploitation of the old European conquerors. She promised a far
less cruel exploitation, along with a complete lack of racial
distinctions.

Communist Russia had just gone through her bitterest
purge, liquidating thousands of old-line Bolsheviks who had
once been leading civil and military officials. Stalin was ab
sorbed in his struggle for his own complete domination within
176

the Red borders. But intelligence reports that MacArthur had
carefully studied revealed that Stalin was slowly building up
his military might in Eastern Siberia, and at the same time he
was developing great steel plants and factories far east of the
Volga in the remote Urals and within the ancient boundaries
of Siberia. Clearly he had not relinquished the old Russian
dreams for warm-water ports on the Pacific.

Unaware of the depth of Red intrigues in Washington, Mac-
Arthur considered the loyal Philippines as America's key to the
whole Western Pacific and to the control of the strategic sea
lanes that paralleled the coasts of East Asia. From this friendly
base America might some day have to fight the conqueror —
possibly a succession of conquerors — of Asia and the Western
Pacific.

It seemed at the moment of MacArthur's arrival in 1935
that Japan might be the first to strike. So he considered su
premely important his plan for building a mighty pool of
trained manpower in the Philippines, ready for America to use
in some future hour of peril.

Douglas MacArthur, now 55 and at the height of his strength
and powers, was risking his fate in this absorbing drama of the
Western Pacific. It was a magnificent challenge and he met it
head on. The challenge assumed a score of different faces,
filling his mind and recalling to his memory the priceless
truths he had learned in the years when as a young officer he
had travelled with his wise father over the vast areas of the
Far East.

During his many long nights of reading and study Mac-
Arthur had come across a strange prophecy made in 1855 by
Commodore Matthew C. Perry, four years after his little fleet
opened the sealed doors of Japan. It was in a remarkable paper
that had been read before a meeting of the American Geo
graphical and Statistical Society at Harvard and later pub
lished by D. Appleton & Co. Two long paragraphs deserve
careful study.

It requires no sage to predict events so strongly foreshadowed
to us all; still "Westward will the course of empire take its way."
But the last act of the drama is yet to be unfolded; and not with
standing the reasoning of political empirics, Westward, North-

177

ward and Southward, to me it seems that the people of America
will, in some form or other, extend their dominion and their
power, until they shall have brought within their mighty embrace
the multitudes of the Islands of the great Pacific, and placed the
Saxon race upon the eastern shores of Asia. And I think, too,
that eastward and southward will her great rival in future ag
grandisement (Russia) stretch forth her power to the coasts of
China and Siam; and thus the Saxon and the Cossack will meet
once more, in strife or in friendship, on another field.

Will it be in friendship? I fear not! The antagonistic exponents
of freedom and absolutism must thus meet at last, and then will
be fought this mighty battle on which the world will look with
breathless interest; for on its issue will depend the freedom or
the slavery of the world — despotism or rational liberty must be
-the fate of civilized men. I think I see in the distance the giants
that are growing up for this fierce and final encounter; in the
progress of events that battle must sooner or later inevitably be
fought.

And in MacArthur's mind were the words uttered by the
young Senator Beveridge of Indiana in 1900: "The power that
rules the Pacific ... is the power that rules the world/'

In a very definite way the five years he had served as Army
Chief of Staff under two presidents had helped prepare him
for the great and uncertain task he faced. He had become a
prominent national figure, and his reputation for brilliance
had made his name known in every capital in the world.

To most of his friends and intimates he still appeared de
cidedly complex. Despite all his personal magnetism, charm
and definite superiority of intellect, he was beginning to be
looked upon as more or less of an enigma, touched possibly by
mysticism. His swift decisions drawn from the vast reservoir of
his knowledge seemed only to add to his reputation for possess
ing an exceptional gift of intuition and insight.

Few seemed to have understood the singleness of his pur
pose, the over-all simplicity and directness of his mind and
background. His moral sense clearly distinguished right from
wrong, justice from unfairness. Above all, his impassioned love

of country had long ago absorbed the strong personal ambitions
of his youth.

These fundamentally important characteristics often were
ignored by those whose myopic vision could see only his nor
mal human weaknesses. Friends, constantly pouring out to him
their full measure of devotion, could not at times understand
why he apparently gave them so little in return. They con
fused his self-discipline and need for concentration with self
ishness and unconcern. It was difficult for them to understand
how fully he had consecrated his mind and heart to his coun
try's service.

During most of his adult life he had sacrificed what would
normally have been happy hours of companionship for the
solitude and study that developed his mind in knowledge and
judgment. But even though he seemingly pushed aside his
natural gifts for human affection and friendship, nothing could
dim his personal charm and magnetism,

11
THE LONG YEARS OF EXILE

Even before the ship touched at Honolulu the General's
mother began to fail in a way that caused alarm. She was in
her 84th year, but, as Doctor Hutter had assured the General,
the long journey had nothing to do with her present condition.

The faithful Mary MacArthur was almost constantly with
her in her cabin. Only once did the mother attempt to sit on
deck. It proved far easier for her to remain propped up in bed.

For long periods during each day and evening her son would
sit by her side and talk to her of his plans, as he had done all
his life. He drew some solace from the fact that no matter
what happened to her, he would be close by her. It was evi
dent that she was probably facing her last illness.

179

Although the official inaugural party, headed by Vice-Presi
dent Garner, was on another ship, there was considerable gaiety
on board the President Hoover. MacArthur took no share in the
festivities during the voyage, but the ship's captain did intro
duce him to a vivacious young lady from Murfreesboro, Ten
nessee, who had a quick smile and a ready wit. It was pleasant
to walk the deck with her and to lean over the rail by her side
and watch the sea.

Shortly before the ship pulled out of Honolulu two large
boxes of flowers were put on board. One found its way to the
cabin of Mrs. Arthur MacArthur, Sr.; the other was opened by
Miss Jean Faircloth.

The General would have liked very much to have his mother
meet the gay, attractive young lady, but it was not to be.
Neither on board the ship, nor during the few short weeks she
lived at the Manila Hotel before her death on December 14,
!935> did the mother set eyes on the slender, gracious woman
who was to mean so much to her son in the years ahead.

She suffered from a cerebral thrombosis, a blood clot in the
arteries of the brain. During her last days she rallied now and
again, but finally sank into a coma. On the morning of her
death she spoke to her son before she drifted off into her last
sleep.

Thus ended the beautiful and lasting comradeship of
mother and son throughout the years. Each had the highest
respect for the intelligence and character of the other. And
the households they had shared were filled with gracious, old-
fashioned living.

In February 1937 the General brought her remains to Wash
ington, where she was buried in the National Cemetery by
the side of her distinguished husband. Acting Secretary of War
Harry Woodring and a little group of intimate friends at
tended the simple rites.

The first bill that President Quez6n presented to the Assembly
of his new Commonwealth government was the National De
fense Act that had been formulated by General MacArthur.

180

The hard core of the land defense rested on a small, profes
sional Philippine regular army of some 350 officers and 5,000
enlisted men, with a permanent army headquarters and staff.
The real defense would ultimately lie in the troops of the
reserve divisions, to be drafted and trained at the rate of some
40,000 recruits each year. Half of this number would enter
the training camps for 51^ months' training each 6-month pe
riod.

In all, 128 camps were constructed at an individual cost
of approximately $8,250, U. S. currency, each housing around
150 trainees. Each camp's permanent instructional force — the
training cadre — consisted of three or four officers and eight to
twelve enlisted men. Trainees were assigned to the camps
nearest their homes, and eventually they were to become a
part of the reserve division posted in their immediate locality.

When the Philippines should receive their full inde
pendence in 1946, the Philippine government would have a
trained and organized militia of about 400,000 men, formed
into some 40 divisions, strategically placed on all the important
islands and ready for prompt mobilization to defend the landing
beaches and oppose ground attacks in the particular area
assigned to each unit. For training equipment and weapons,
MacArthur was forced to be content with World War I Amer
ican stocks on loan. At the end of the ten-year training period —
1946 — he trusted that modern weapons would be supplied in
part or wholly by the United States, depending, of course, on
the world situation.

It was broadly formed after the plan of the citizens' army,
based on the principles of universal selective service, which
had proved so successful in Switzerland. In addition to the
ground forces, there would be a fleet of 50 small, high-speed
torpedo-throwing craft to oppose hostile landings and an air
force of 250 planes.

MacArthur quickly established a splendid military academy,
built on the model of West Point and under the superintend-
ency of Colonel Pastor Martelino, a Filipino officer who had
graduated from West Point in the class of 1920. An imagina
tive and energetic young American officer, Captain Bonnei
Fellers, who joined MacArthur's staff in February 1936, was

181

assigned the job of creating almost overnight a Reserve Officers'
Training School at Baguio.

Majors Eisenhower and Ord put in long hours organizing
the first series of small cantonments, borrowing the initial
training cadres from the Philippine constabulary, which even
tually was to be incorporated into the regular Philippine Army.
Besides the purely military side of the camps, there was a
broad and humane effort to build up the health and economic
well-being of the trainees, 80% of whom were from backward
rural homes and surroundings.

Things progressed rapidly, but there was no question about
the handicap imposed on MacArthur by his relief as Chief of
Staff. One of the ideas that he had hoped to incorporate into his
over-all plan was for the American Army in the Islands to
school a number of enlisted Filipinos for use in the training
program. It would have improved the quality of training given
the Filipino selectees; and it would have been of enormous
training value to the American Army itself. His sudden relief
as Chief of Staff shattered these high hopes.

The Philippine Commonwealth, limited in funds as it was,
was paying the full bill totalling $8,000,000 gold annually. U. S.
Regular Army officers, both in Manila and Washington, were
rather skeptical of the whole proposition. General Craig and
his staff were too busy implementing MacArthur's Four-Army
plan, as well as fighting to get additional troops and equip
ment, to be genuinely concerned about the fate of the great
experiment on the other side of the world. The Philippine
Department commander, taking his cue from Washington, sat
idly by.

But despite this lack of interest in Washington and Manila,
the alert and impetuous Manuel Quez6n was delighted with
the early progress made. His enthusiasm took the form of in
sisting that MacArthur accept the rank of field marshal of the
then almost non-existent Philippine Army. At an elaborate
ceremony at Malacanan Palace on August 24, 1936, President
Quezon presented him with the commission, and Mrs. Quez6n
handed him the gold baton of a field marshal.

To the skeptical habitues of Manila clubs this was an event
inviting sly comment. Probably at the moment the high rank
182

was hardly worth the gold that went into the baton. Mac-
Arthur, however, knew what the friendly gesture meant to
millions of humble and patient Filipinos who had so much
faith in him. ; •

Almost from the beginning of his" new duties he had to face
hidden but effective civilian and governmental opposition,
both in Manila and in Washington. Shortly after the new
Philippine government came into being, High Commissioner
Murphy intimated to Roosevelt that the Islands were not big
enough for both MacArthur and himself. He insisted that Mac-
Arthur, as President Quez6n's Military Advisor, should be di
rectly under his own office.

The subsequent actions and reactions of Murphy form a
somewhat curious pattern. A bachelor, he seemingly placed
considerable store in the friendship of both President and Mrs.
Quez6n. As a matter of fact, he may have been envious of the
long intimacy of MacArthur with the Quez6n family. Once
when he was rather petulantly chiding Mrs. Quez6n regarding
the General's close family relationship, she answered: "But,
Frank, you don't seem to understand: Douglas is our brother/'

After MacArthur had been in Manila a little more than a
year, Murphy, who had returned to the States and been suc
ceeded by the former Governor of Indiana, Paul V. McNutt,
wired Quezon that President Roosevelt was anxious to see the
Commonwealth President sometime during February 1937. As
a result of this apparently friendly invitation, the Quez6ns with
MacArthur and a small group embarked for the States on
January 23, 1937.

When they arrived in New York they found Murphy on
vacation in Florida, and no word of welcome from the White
House. It was a most embarrassing situation for the proud
and sensitive President of the Commonwealth. MacArthur
went straight to Washington to find out what was wrong.

He called Ross Mclntyre, the President's secretary, and
asked for an appointment with Roosevelt. He made it clear
that he wanted to talk over the visit of the Commonwealth's
President, and to explain that the invitation had come from
Frank Murphy, and how important it was — especially to the
Far East — that Quez6n receive every courtesy and considera-

183

tion. Mclntyre replied that President Roosevelt had no idea
what Quez6n was doing in the United States, that he had sent
no invitation for him to come to Washington either through
Murphy or anyone else, and that he had no intention of seeing
the Philippine Chief Executive.

MacArthur continued to urge the importance of Quez6n be
ing properly received, but Mclntyre refused to be moved. The
General then asked for an appointment to pay his own re
spects to the President. This was reluctantly granted, with the
stipulation that it was not to be for more than five or ten
minutes.

Less than two years before MacArthur had been accorded
every courtesy in the White House; now he was grudgingly
allowed a short courtesy call, only after he had insisted upon
it.

The following day MacArthur kept the appointment, but
instead of a few minutes he stayed for almost two hours. Once
again there were hot words and a frankness that few ever
dared to use with the President of the United States. Mac-
Arthur insisted that at the very least Roosevelt must invite
Quezon to lunch. The whole Far Eastern world was watching
the unprecedented experiment of this voluntary creation of the
Philippine Commonwealth; the consequences of a snub to the
President of the Philippines could have dangerous repercus
sions throughout the Asiatic world. MacArthur pointed out
that the Japanese Army was again on the loose and if the
United States should become involved in a Pacific war, it was
absolutely necessary to have the enthusiastic loyalty of Quezon
and the Islands.

Roosevelt finally agreed to invite Quez6n alone to a private
lunch, but that very same evening of the MacArthur interview
Secretary Mclntyre phoned that the President had changed
his mind and the luncheon was off. MacArthur requested that
he be switched to the President's phone, and so determined
was his demand that Mclntyre said he would himself talk to
the President again and would call back the General. This
time the secretary announced that Roosevelt had reconsidered
the matter and would see Quez6n at lundi.

In order to soften the appearance of the White House snub,
184

Acting Secretary of War Woodring gave Quez6n and his group
a large official tea party at the Mayflower. Both MacArthur
and the new High Commissioner McNutt were present.

It was clear that certain men close to the President were in
opposition to the Quez6n-MacArthur team. And some commer
cial interests probably had both sincere and selfish motives in
their desire to see the Philippines give up the idea of full
independence and remain permanently as a commonwealth
with free trade with the United States and with the great naval
base in Manila Bay remaining securely in American hands.
Powerful and conservative Spanish elements within the
Catholic Church were definitely opposed to complete inde
pendence. But of even greater importance were secret in
fluences managed by Soviet Russia that were concerned with
prejudicing the Far East against the United States.

MacArthur, busy as he was in advising Quezon on many
items, had certain affairs of his own to look after. On Friday
morning, April 30, he appeared at the marriage chapel of the
Municipal Building in New York with Major Howard J.
Hutter and Captain T. J. Davis, his aides — and Miss Jean
Marie Faircloth. At 10 o'clock Deputy City Clerk Philip A.
Hines performed the civil marriage ceremony, and the party
repaired to the Astor Hotel for a wedding breakfast.

It had been an unusual courtship. Until shortly before the
ship carrying the MacArthur party and Miss Faircloth docked
at Hong Kong, on the trip out to Manila in October 1935,
Miss Faircloth had planned to leave the ship for a visit with
British friends in the Crown Colony. But there was gentle
pressure from all sides for her to continue to Manila and wit
ness the colorful inaugural ceremonies.

She found it easy and pleasant to stay on at the Manila
Hotel. She was a very youthful 35, and there were many at
tractive young bachelor officers and American civilians to keep
her days bright and full. As time went on she dined rather
often with the General and one or two of his aides in the
public dining room of the hotel. Often the two would attend
a movie together.

Shortly after the Quezon-MacArthur party had left for the
States in January 1937, Miss Jean quietly departed from

185

Manila by plane. It was a rough voyage to Honolulu both for
her on her plane, and for the official party on their ship. Quite
by coincidence they all shifted at Hawaii to a steamer bound
for San Diego. The marriage was to be kept a secret until the
actual ceremony was over.

Back in Manila the MacArthurs lived in quiet contentment
in a specially built penthouse atop the Manila Hotel. As he
had done for the past 20 years, the General shunned all but a
very few official gatherings, and spent most of his evenings in
his library. His one relaxation continued to be the movies,
and particularly when a Western was shown.

Toward the middle of August a letter was handed to him
marked "Personal and Confidential." It read as follows:

WAR DEPARTMENT

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF

WASHINGTON, D. C.

August 6, 1937

PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

General Douglas MacArthur -

Military Advisor to the

President of the Philippine Commonwealth

Manila, Philippine Islands.

My dear Douglas:

1 am letting you know in this personal and confidential way
that it has been decided that your services are needed in the
United States and that upon completion by you of two years of
absence on foreign service you are to be brought home for duty
in the United States, and the directive in a confidential letter of
September 18, 1935, from the Adjutant General to you extending
the limits of your tour, will be revoked.

There will be made available to you if practicable any com
mand for which you may express a preference, even though this
will probably involve the arbitrary change of station and duties
of the incumbent whose command will be desired by you. . . .

The return of your Assistants is not contemplated right now,
in order that the work you are doing may continue as planned
and until the Commonwealth President makes other arrange
ments for a Military Advisor who, after installation, will makfc
such changes as he may desire.

I am suggesting that you communicate with me in code as,

186

aside from the Secretary of War, no one in the War Department
knows the foregoing . . .

Please believe me, with kind regards and best wishes

Sincerely your friend,
(sgd.) Malin Craig

MacArthur studied the astounding document. At first he felt
that some sudden fear of war had gripped the White House
and that he was being called home to take over the building of
a field army. But the more he considered the strange letter, the
more he was convinced that such a possibility was not the rea
son for his recall. It might even be that he was being forced
from his close association with Quez6n in order to embarrass
the whole Philippine independence movement and to deny
the Philippine President the constant use of his help and ad
vice.

Finally he ended by sending in code a cautiously worded
reply to Craig:

I am naturally sorry to go. Particularly do I regret leaving un
finished a work which I regard as of transcendent importance and
which represents to me an opportunity for service in the Philip
pines, to my own government, and to the Filipino people, for
whom I have an abiding affection and esteem. I look forward with
anticipation to whatever duty the War Department may have
decided I should now undertake in the service of my country.

MacArthur

Quez6n was distraught at the prospect of losing the advice
and counsel of his trusted friend. He had constantly leaned on
the General during many dark hours in these early days of the
young commonwealth. To assure the swift and sure delivery
of his protest, President Quez6n now sent through the new
High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt a long cable to President
Roosevelt. It began:

I am deeply disturbed by the persistent rumors which have
come to me both in the States and since my return to Manila,
that the War Department contemplates the early relief of Gen
eral MacArthur as military advisor to this government. While
reluctant to impose upon your time with a subject that may
have no foundation in fact, I am so upset by the consequences of

187

such a contingency that I have decided to present my own earnest
convictions to you personally. . . .

From the inception of the defense undertaking, it was manifest
that the individual selected to devise such a program in all its
technical details . . . should be permitted to carry the program
to its practical fruition. In my original conferences with the late
Secretary of War Dern, looking towards the detail of General
MacArthur on this task, this point was particularly stressed. I
was then definitely assured that only in the event of war would
General MacArthur be relieved from his position before the
expiration of the six year period of my administration. . . .

But the American President did not bother even to acknowl
edge this cable — if he ever saw it. Quez6n, now frantic over the
prospect of losing his mainstay, appealed to MacArthur to ask
for retirement from the U. S. Army in order that he might
continue on as his Military Advisor.

Conscious of the growing opposition that had developed
against him, MacArthur felt that his duty left him no al
ternative but to write Craig asking for retirement on Decem
ber 31, 1937. There was some question whether this request
would be granted. In the end, he was to feel grateful to Craig
for taking his request directly to the White House and secur
ing the personal approval of the President.

A curious sidelight on the situation is contained in a long
letter to Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House from a trusted
old friend, Fred Howe, who at this time was a newly arrived
special advisor to the Philippine President on the problem of
rural rehabilitation. It was the first report that Howe made in
directly to the White House. Certain passages seem to throw
a degree of light on the character of the recent opposition
there to MacArthur. The letter dated September 7, 1937,
read in part:

. . . When I came out here I had been loaded with statements
regarding President Quez6n, about the American Army, about a
2,000,000 Philippine Army that was being created by General
MacArthur, until I hesitated about coming. Much of this came
from The Nation and other friends of a radical sort with whom
I have long been associated.

And now to my mental amazement I find the same propaganda
188

being made by the imperialists that is being made by portions
of the press and my friends back home. I am wondering if our
friends are not being used, as they have been used before, to pull
the chestnuts out of the fire, for those who want the United
States to hold on to the Islands, to scuttle President Quez6n and
discredit General MacArthur, who has won my confidence as have
few men I have met in the Islands. Instead of an army of 2,000,000
I find successive militia groups of 20,000 men being given six
months training, largely with the ultimate objective of an army
of 400,000 militia in ten years. Also that the training that they
get is in hygiene, in agriculture, in handicraft, and in making
them ready to take up homesteads and establish themselves as
self-respecting citizens. . . .

But it is the success of President Quez6n as an administrator,
and of General MacArthur in building a citizen army, designed
as a defensive army only, that stands in the way of an impe
rialistic policy. If President Quez6n can be discredited and the
trainee system, similar to the Swiss army, be halted, almost the
only alternative is American military and naval protection of
the Islands. And judging by what I hear from home and the
attitude of the imperialistic interests in Manila, that would seem
to be the present insidious line of attack; a line of attack in which
the pacific minded persons are working hand in glove with the
very forces they most fear. . . .

Almost certainly the Howe letter was read by President
Roosevelt, but it made no difference. On October 11, 1937,
Secretary of War Woodring released to the press a cable the
President had just sent to MacArthur. Parts of it might al
most have been copied from the telegram from Roosevelt
that had been delivered to the General two years before, when
he had suddenly relieved him as Chief of Staff. This latest
message read:

Dear Douglas: With great reluctance and deep regret I have
approved your application for retirement, effective December 31.
Personally, as well as officially, I wish to thank you for your out
standing services to your country. Your record in war and in
peace is a brilliant chapter of American history. Please accept my
best wishes for a well-earned rest and for abundant happiness.
I count on seeing you as soon as you get back.

Franklin D. Roosevelt.

189

One other phase of his virtually forced retirement from the
Army at this time in 1937 is worthy o£ note: MacArthur was
officially notified by the War Department that he would be
raised to the rank of full general when he retired — which was
the identical promise that had been made when his relief as
Chief of Staff had been announced in 1935. But somewhere up
the line, once again, the word given was ignored, for he was
officially retired as a major general.

On November 21, 1937, the A.P. correspondent in Manila
dispatched a cable stating that there was again talk in the Is
lands of the possibility of Filipino leaders asking that the full
independence provision be changed to a permanent domin
ion form of government within the framework of the United
States. Even Quez6n was indicated as having seriously enter
tained the startling proposition.

The cable further went on to say that at the last moment
before adjourning, the session of the National Assembly voted
a resolution of thanks to MacArthur for his aid in organizing
the Philippine Army, "but the Assembly deleted a section
which would have authorized and empowered Quezon to re
tain MacArthur as his Military Advisor and to keep his name
on the army roll for life/'

MacArthur kept his own counsel. Meanwhile other cables
were being sent from Manila. The day after Christmas The
New York Times carried a dispatch that certain Common
wealth officials were critical of the burden of MacArthur's
special salary.

It had been a well-kept secret that in addition to the then
$6,000 retired pay of a major general, he was receiving from
the Philippine government an annual salary of $15,000 gold
as Military Advisor to the President, and the same amount for
civil representation.

Officers on MacArthur's staff, who were still on active status
in the United States Army but on assignment to the office of
Military Advisor, also received a special per diem allowance of
$10 gold from the Philippine government. Toward the end
190

of Lt. Colonel Eisenhower's first extra year of duty, he took
up with President Quezon the matter of an additional emolu
ment for himself and he was granted an increase that
amounted to $500 a month rather than the original $10 a day.
Few questioned that for chief of staff to the military mission it
was a just and fully earned increase in pay.

On Christmas day, President Quez6n was scheduled to make
a radio speech to America in the form of a fireside talk. But
he was half sick and harassed, having been under terrific
pressure from various church and business interests to back
down from his commitments for complete independence for
the commonwealth government in 1946, and to ask, instead,
for a long-range dominion status, under the protection of the
United States with free trade.

When MacArthur heard of the proposed speech he immedi
ately protested and persuaded Quez6n to cancel the broadcast.

But if Quez6n wavered momentarily in his independence
plans, he did not falter in his insistence that MacArthur stay
on with him, regardless of everything else. On December 31
it was announced from Malacafian Palace that MacArthur was
remaining as Military Advisor to the President.

MacArthur's only comment was: "This is a call of duty I
cannot fail."

But in his own mind, there must have been considerable
bitterness over being forced to retire from the American
Army he had served so long. He was never to discover all the
hidden reasons and secret ramifications that were responsible
for the summary order for him to return home. To confuse
the issue further there were groups around President Roose
velt and within the War Department that were well pleased
to have him isolated and forgotten 10,000 miles from Wash
ington.

Back in October of 1937 MacArthur disclosed confidentially to
the senior members of the staff his pending recall to the
United States. Neither Eisenhower nor Ord, both of whom
had recently been promoted to the permanent rank of lieu-

191

tenant colonel, could be criticized for wondering if the fat
plum of Military Advisor might not fall in his lap. Each coveted
the assignment. They had been fellow cadets at West Point
and they were close friends.

From the start of the mission Lt. Colonel Ord, an accom
plished Spanish scholar, handled personally the Philippine
Army budget for both the Military Advisor's office and Presi
dent Quezon. Ord and Eisenhower felt that the small perma
nent Philippine Regular Army, as distinct from the Reserve
Army, should be substantially increased in size. With little
help coming from the U. S. forces in the Islands, it was neces
sary to assign many of the Philippine regulars to the training
camps and to the headquarters staff. The two senior planning
officers of the mission felt keenly that there should be larger
and more impressive regular units. But adding to the Philip
pine Regular Army strength would entail an enlarged budget,
which was the one thing General MacArthur had promised
Quezon he would never request.

Apparently Lt. Colonel Ord, knowing that MacArthur would
soon be relieved as Military Advisor, and secure in the belief
in the justice of his case, did construct a new budget and
independently took it to Quez6n, without clearing it through
MacArthur, chief of the mission. President Quez6n was aghast.

"Why, General MacArthur assured me that there would
never have to be an enlarged budget," Quez6n in effect ex
plained. "I pledged the Assembly that I would never ask for
an increase. I'd rather have an arm cut off than ask for it now."

Lt. Colonel Ord again carefully explained the need of the
increases.

"Well, 111 do it if I have to/1 Quezon finally agreed, "but
I have the most serious misgivings."

Quez6n was so upset at the proposal that he held up certain
routine matters that regularly passed between himself and
MacArthur's office. Finally MacArthur, aware that there was
something wrong along the line, called in his two senior assist
ants to find out what the trouble was. It was then that he dis
covered Ord's plan to get the budget increased.

When he demanded an immediate explanation from Ord,
Eisenhower came to his classmate's defense. MacArthur justly

resented the fact that he had not been consulted, even though
he was shortly to be relieved and returned home. The inter
view was fiery, and deep scars were left. The close and intimate
relation that had heretofore existed between the General and
Eisenhower was forever destroyed.

Ord was killed shortly after this when a training plane in
which he was a passenger crashed near Baguio. MacArthur in
announcing the tragic death stressed his professional and per
sonal regard for the talented officer.

In the fall of 1937, when Eisenhower's regular two-year as
signment was drawing to a close, MacArthur had asked that
Eisenhower's tour of duty on the military mission be extended
for a third year. When that period was ending, he requested
that he be kept on for a fourth year. It is an army tradition
that on all Eisenhower's efficiency reports MacArthur had given
him the highest possible rating, "Superior."

Sometime after the tragic death of Ord a major of infantry,
Richard Sutherland, whose father was a Senator from West
Virginia, and who had in 1916 been commissioned in the
Regular Army directly from Yale, was assigned to the mission
as deputy chief of staff. In the late summer of 1938 when
Eisenhower left Manila to be gone four months, Sutherland
filled in as chief of staff.

After Eisenhower's return he and Sutherland, with their
widely different military and family backgrounds, developed
certain cross-purposes. Sutherland gradually began to assume
more and more power in the inner circle of the mission.

On October 25, 1938, MacArthur wrote to an old army
friend regarding the general Manila situation:

In the Army all goes well. The Constabulary has been sepa
rated from the Army proper and General Francisco has been
named its Chief. It will have an appropriation of five million
pesos of its own and will consist of 350 officers and 5,000 men.
As there is to be no diminution in the Army budget it has eased
up the financial situation considerably. Sutherland has proven
himself a real find. Concise, energetic and able, he has been in
valuable in helping me clarify and crystallize the situation.

Late in 1939, after Eisenhower had served 4 full years, Suther
land replaced him as chief of staff of the mission. The Mac-

193

Arthurs joined in the gay despedido to the Eisenhowers when
they sailed. A day or two before their departure Dr. Howard
Hutter gave a farewell dinner for them, and the General and
Mrs. MacArthur attended. (It was the last time the two soldiers
would see one another until a day in May 1946 when General
of the Army Eisenhower, newly appointed Chief of Staff of the
U. S. Army, arrived in his plane at the Tokyo airfield, where he
was met by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme
Commander of the Japanese Occupation. Their next meeting
after Tokyo was seven years later, when the newly designated
Republican Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, brought them
together at a luncheon in New York City. Eisenhower was
then President elect.)

It was obvious to MacArthur during these uncertain days
that he had no real friends at court in Washington — save pos
sibly Brigadier General Edwin M. (Pa) Watson, President Roo
sevelt's highly placed personal aide, and Steve Early, press sec
retary, both MacArthur's devoted admirers.

He realized how definitely and unmistakably he was being
left alone. The men running the War Department were no
longer his intimates. They were all fully occupied trying to
make what little they had stretch out to cover the hundred
and one items that called for help in the threatening world
situation. And step by step they were being forced to accept
the White House point of view that America must back up
Britain in her growing conflict with Hitler's Nazi dictatorship.

MacArthur's Philippine Reserve Army was slowly increas
ing in numbers, but lack of properly trained officers, arms,
equipment, and money for conducting even limited field ex
ercises seriously handicapped his efforts. It was impossible in
the original short 51^ -month training periods, complicated by
schooling in hygiene and physical and moral improvement,
to give die draftees more than the most rudimentary instruc
tion in soldiering. In most cases there was no training possi
ble for units larger than a company.

Yet with proper aid from the White House and the War
194

Department and with full cooperation from the U. S. Army
in the Philippines, there could have been added each year to
the Philippine Reserve Army a competent force of 40,000 well-
armed and trained soldiers, ready for any emergency. It
seemed almost incredible that the men running affairs in
Washington, regardless of any personal animosity they might
have had against MacArthur, did not help in the building up
of this priceless reserve of manpower in the spot where it
might be so badly needed. It was not until some years later that
the facts regarding Red and anti-American influences in the
government in Washington brought new light on the failures.

Fortunately there was to be for MacArthur a very definite com
pensation for these years when professionally he had so little
with which to accomplish his vast military dream, and when so
many roadblocks were being erected against him. On Febru
ary 21, 1938, he was presented with a son and heir.

Once again there was an Arthur MacArthur. The oldest son
of his brother, Arthur, held the family given name until his
death at the Naval Academy at Annapolis aged 17. The Gen
eral's brother had died in 1924, so that the proud name was
lost, until now when this little baby appeared to carry it on.

To MacArthur, recently turned 58, this was by far the hap
piest day of his life. Early that afternoon President Quezon
and Captain Bonner Fellers, personal liaison officer between
the Philippine President and General MacArthur, called to of
fer their congratulations.

The General was in fine fettle. He explained that some
years before this when his two young nephews were married,
he wrote each of them a half-serious, half-humorous letter ex
plaining that since it was absolutely essential to perpetuate
the name of their distinguished great-grandfather, their soldier
grandfather and their own beloved father, he ordered and di
rected them to produce a son to be duly named Arthur Mac-
Arthur. But as time went on, only girls had appeared.

And now on this fine day of February 21, 19158, he had
again written his nephews. Since they had failed completely to

195

carry out his orders he had decided he must take over the as
signment personally — and he was now reporting to them that
the mission had been completed most satisfactorily, and that
there was once again an Arthur MacArthur.

When the baby was a few weeks old, the christening was
held in the library of the penthouse atop the Manila Hotel.
Only Dr. Hutter and one or two on the General's staff and Brig
adier General Creed F. Cox, former chief of the Bureau of In
sular Affairs were present. The local Bishop of the Episcopal
Church officiated, and when the simple ceremony was ended,
the General in measured tones so low they barely carried to the
walls of the room proved again his great gift for words and deep
sentiment.

It was a moment of supreme happiness for him, he said.
Now the name Arthur MacArthur could live on. He hoped that
a compassionate God would protect this little boy, so that he
might long enjoy the superb inheritance that had been handed
down to him.

All in all, these years in Manila were by no means marked
exclusively by defeat or frustration. He faced his problems
dispassionately, giving each its proper place and weight. He
had no illusions about how he stood in Washington. But he real
ized that the men around the President and in the War and
Navy departments were subject to terrific pressure during this
period just before World War II.

MacArthur knew that Brigadier General George Marshall
would shortly relieve Malin Craig as Army Chief of Staff. In
the fall of 1936, Colonel Marshall, at the urgent request of
General Pershing, had been made a brigadier general. After
commanding a brigade of infantry in Washington state for a
year, he was brought to the General Staff and assigned head of
war planning. In 1938 he was detailed as Deputy Chief of Staff,
and in the summer of 1939, when General Craig went on ter
minal leave, he became Acting Chief of Staff. On September i,
the day Germany invaded Poland, Roosevelt appointed him
Chief of Staff of the Army.

General Craig would not have been MacArthur's choice as
his successor. Craig was not always cooperative in helping along
MacArthur's Philippine program. It is possible that Craig was
196

pliable to the pressures from the White House and certain other
sources, but he had no personal animosity toward MacArthur.

George Marshall, however, might very well allow a personal
feeling of hostility to influence his attitude. MacArthur had
no reason at this time to harbor the slightest feeling of ill-will
toward the new Chief of Staff. How much Marshall may have
held against MacArthur can never be positively known. In
their army associations, from the days when they had been
young lieutenants, there had always been a rather far-fetched
conscious or unconscious rivalry between them. MacArthur's
spectacular rise in rank, culminating in being made the 4-star
Chief of Staff while Marshall was still a lieutenant colonel,
could hardly have failed to arouse a certain jealousy. Nor was
it quite human to expect that Marshall could forget the fact
that MacArthur had not insisted that he be made a general
officer. [Early in the war Marshall said to a militarily minded
visitor (the author) in his office: 'I'm interested in making
young generals. You know I wasn't made a general officer myself
until a bare two years before I would have reached the age limit
for promotion. I never forgot it." He might have added that he
never forgave the man whom he thought responsible for this
delay.]

From the start of the mission back in October 1935 the cards
had obviously been stacked against MacArthur by the men in
power in Washington. Great events shaping up in Europe and
Asia also were working against him and his dream of creating
an adequate defensive Philippine Army. On his short visit
stateside in the spring of 1937, he saw how the winds were
blowing. Certain powerful groups were busy in their efforts to
hypnotize America into a violent hate campaign against Hitler.
By 1937 most of the important elements in the administration
had joined up in creating a vast war propaganda machine.

Despite 1936 campaign pledges and forecasts, it was evident
that there had been little substantial economic recovery and
that unemployment figures were again advancing. Both Ger
many and Japan were casting dark war shadows, and it
seemed easy and practical to build up a psychosis of fear
against these twin threats to peace. And hate against Hitler was
being carefully propagandized.

197

So it was that President Roosevelt and the groups that were
urging him on found a valid reason for launching a rearma
ment program at home that coincided with a steady collusion
with Britain's defense against the Nazis. Apparent concern over
the new Japanese war against China, which started with the
Marco Polo Bridge incident in Peiping in mid-ig37, gave a
strong argument in favor of much-needed preparedness.

As early as December 1937 there were informal exchanges
and oral agreements made in London between the American
and British navies, "in the event of the two fleets being re
quired to work together in a war against Japan." Other moves
followed this pattern of close coordination and mutual re
sponsibilities of the U. S. and Britain.

In the spring of 1939 the U. S. Joint Board Planning Com
mittee—the Army and Navy in Washington — made studies
based on the prospect of America becoming involved in a
World War. By May the talks reached the stage where the Joint
Board discarded the old Orange Plan, replacing it with a new
strategy called Rainbow Plan i. This was rapidly expanded un
til there were five Rainbow Plans. They were laid before the
President six weeks before the European war started. The old
Orange Plan had contemplated war with only one nation and
in one area — Japan — but the new strategy squarely faced the
proposition of a war fought simultaneously against more than
one enemy and in several theatres. Eventually Rainbow 5 was
chosen as the working plan that would best meet the enlarged
possibility. By this time it had the secret cooperation of the
British.

Almost four years had now slipped by since MacArthur's ar
rival in Manila yet no single move of consequence had been
made by Washington to assist him in building a great reservoir
of manpower. Since the summer of 1937 the Japanese had been
openly at war with Chiang Kai-shek, and the invading armies
had slowly overrun mbst of the coastal areas and captured many
important cities of China. A puppet government was established
at Nanking on the Yangtze.

But a strongly conservative and pacifist group in Japan op
posed the war party. Joseph C. Grew, the American ambassa
dor in Tokyo, likewise exercised a steadying influence for
198

a peaceful settlement of the Japanese invasion of China, and
for an avoidance of war between the United States and Japan.
America's strong protective arm still remained around Chiang
Kai-shek's shoulder, but Washington apparently was so steamed
up in its hate of Hitler, and in its fervor to preserve Britain's
empire, that there was neither time nor mood for any real at
tempt at conciliation with Japan.

MacArthur could do nothing more than to watch the darken
ing war clouds gather over both Europe and the China Seas.
He was fully alert to the possible consequences of the Russian-
German Treaty of August 23, 1939, which left both Germany
and Russia free of the handicap of having immediately to fight
a two-front war. Russia in her own time could attack her help
less western neighbors.

Hitler's attack on Poland came September i, 1939, the day
that George Marshall became Chief of Staff. At once he and
his War Planning Board were faced with the problem of
swiftly enlarging the American Army, building up war pro
duction and vastly increasing the size of the Air Corps. But
there was still a strong isolationist sentiment throughout the
country and it was consistently reflected in the Congress.

A progressive change of sentiment came after May 10, when
the German Army swiftly overran Belgium and France and
drove the British Army in complete rout to the beaches of
Dunkirk. Immediately the President and his military advisors
faced the possibility of the French fleet going over to the Ger
mans. And an even more startling hazard to consider was that
Britain might be invaded, and the great British fleet either
neutralized or forced to leave its home bases.

On August 6, 1940, a group consisting of Admiral Robert L.
Ghormley of the Navy, Major General George V. Strong .of the
Army and Major General Delos C. Emmons, Commanding
General of the Army's G.H.Q. Air Force, departed secretly
'for London. It was the direct forerunner of the historic staff
conversations which began in Washington on January 29,
1941, and lasted until March 27.

The summer and fall of 1940 were filled with a series of
disturbing events: the air blitz on England; the uncertainty of
the Soviet moves after her sharing the spoils of Poland at the

199

start of the war; the transfer of 50 over-age but reconditioned
destroyers to Britain; and the growing threat of Japan. After
the military disaster of May 1940 both France and Britain
pleaded for immediate shipment of surplus war supplies. Pres
ident Roosevelt even urged the sending to Britain of every
other 6-17 bomber that was produced, but both Chief of Staff
Marshall and General H. H. Arnold, chief of the Air Corps,
succeeded in having the ratio reduced.

The matter of turning over army surplus to the British
was placed in the hands of Secretary of the Treasury Henry
Morgenthau, Jr., whose subsequent actions were opposed by
Secretary of War Woodring. Some 550 75-mm. guns had al
ready been declared surplus and assigned to Britain, when on
June 11, 1940, a second lot of 500 cannon being requested,
the order for their delivery was issued by Secretary Morgen
thau. There were requests, too, for large amounts of small-
arms ammunition.

About this time the Secretary of War received a message
from the White House asking him to pass upon a proposal for
additional aid to Great Britain. Woodring considered the ful
fillment of the request inadvisable, and without stating his
own opinions he asked General Marshall to study the problem
and advise him promptly.

General Marshall took up the pressing matter with his G-4,
whose answer was brief and to the point: "No guns should be
declared surplus, obsolete, or placed in any other category
that would render them available for sale. ... It would take
two years for production to catch up with requirements."

This was a part of the study Marshall handed to the har
assed Secretary of War, which the latter marked " Approved,
Harry H. Woodring," and sent post haste to the White
House. A copy was dispatched to the Secretary of the Treasury,
who was still handling Allied war purchases.

A few hours later a letter came from the President saying
that since Woodring's refusal to approve the arms proposal for
Britain showed that he was not in sympathy with the admin
istration's policies, he desired his resignation. Woodring re
plied with an angry letter in which he indicted the national
defense and the financial policies of the administration. He in-
200

sisted that he had always been willing to help the Allies and
had done so up to the point where such action jeopardized his
own country's security.

Woodring recited the history of his consistent efforts to ob
tain adequate funds for preparedness and how always there had
been sharp cuts made in his estimates, although the President
had asked and received heavy grants for many WPA programs.
He insisted that the billions now being spent would not mean
adequate defense tomorrow, and that since it would take two
years to be ready for war, prudence dictated that the govern
ment should avoid being drawn into a conflict until America
was ready. The Secretary ended by saying that his resignation
would take place at the close of office hours that afternoon.

When Woodring told General Marshall of his resignation,
the Chief of Staff is said to have replied: "I am stunned. But
I want you to know that you have been made the victim in
place of the General Staff, which you have constantly supported
and protected."

President Roosevelt subsequently tried to smooth out Wood-
ring's bitterness but failed, even with the offer of an ambas
sadorship. A few days later, on June 19, 1940, Henry L. Stim-
son, ardent Republican interventionist and anti-Japanese
extremist, was appointed Secretary of War. General Marshall
saw that either he himself must ask for immediate relief as
Chief of Staff or comply with the Commander-in-Chief in the
White House and with the new Secretary of War now em
barked on the road to certain war. He chose the latter course.

Almost simultaneously with the coming to the War Depart
ment of Stimson, who had been Mr. Hoover's Secretary of
State, it was announced that the Republican vice-presidential
nominee in the 1936 campaign, Frank Knox, had accepted the
appointment as Secretary of the Navy. Both appointments were
shrewd and disturbing political moves.

Into the advancing maelstrom of war there was now injected
Roosevelt's fight for a third term. The isolationist groups were
joined by a considerable element opposed to the idea of a
third term, and still others were bitterly against the New Deal
policies both at home and abroad. Roosevelt met the anti-war
voters head on with the unequivocal pledge, made in a final

201

speech in Boston, that no American boy would be sent to fight
abroad, adding the famous refrain "I say it again, and again
and again."

Meanwhile General MacArthur, absorbed in the problems
that confronted him in the Philippines, almost 10,000 miles
away, had long had his own definite ideas about New Deal
policies. He was now retired from the Army and free to com
ment. On December 29, 1939, he wrote to an army friend in
the States that he considered that the greatest disaster that
could possibly visit the world would be Roosevelt's re-elec
tion as President of the United States.

MacArthur realized fully the dangers of the President's war
policy. For America, it was not so much a matter of drifting
into intervention in Europe as being definitely pushed toward
that end by the administration itself. Here in Manila, lying
athwart the sea roads leading from Japan to the rich war re
sources of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, he could not
help realizing the oblivion that awaited him. No single move
had been made in his behalf. He had been completely aban
doned and neglected. Already Europe and Hitler were marked
as the No. i concern of the administration, and the far Pa
cific and American obligations there were pushed to the rear.

By the latter part of 1940, General Marshall and his War Plans
Division (WPD) with White House pressure behind them
were deep in the problem of hurriedly increasing the armed
strength of the nation. On August 27 the National Guard was
voted into federal service for one year, and on September 16 a
Selective Service Act of a single year's duration was passed by
Congress. Both were subject to the definite commitment that
no troops would be sent to foreign countries outside the con
tinental limits of the United States. War factories were be
ginning to turn out quantities of arms and equipment,
training camps were springing up, and considerable progress
toward a real defense was being made.

In October 1940 Churchill dispatched a message to Roose
velt requesting that an American naval squadron be sent to
202

Singapore. Both Admiral H. R. Stark and General Marshall
opposed the request on the ground that it might provoke ac
tion by Japan. But the dictum by Stark that "the vital theatre
is the Eastern Atlantic, and the Western Pacific a secondary
one" met the avowed approval o£ Marshall. The British con
ception that Germany was "the principal foe, with Japan as the
one to be fully disposed of at a later date" had been accepted
by the American chiefs of the armed services. There was no
place in the high councils of power in Washington for anyone
who opposed this fiat. The order had come straight down
from the White House, and behind it stood the tremendous
influence that Churchill already wielded on the President and
on Harry Hopkins and others of the Inner Circle.

MacArthur's role apparently had been reduced to little more
than that of a trainer of Philippine draftees. Militarily starved
as he was, his deepest concern was for his country's preparedness.

In answer to a cable sent by William Allen White, chairman
of the group called Defend America by Aiding the Allies, he em
phasized the two fatal words that ran like a dark thread of
doom through the pattern of all American military history:

You have asked my military opinion as to whether the time
has come for America to give continued and further aid to Eng
land, in the fight for civilization. The history of failure in war
can almost always be summed up in two words — too late. Too
late in comprehending the deadly power of the potential enemy.
Too late in preparedness. Too late in uniting all possible forces
for resistance. Too late in standing by one's friends.

The greatest strategic mistake in all history will be made if
America fails to recognize this vital moment, if she permits again
the writing of that fatal epitaph — too late.

In June 1940 Major General George Grunert was sent to
command the Department of the Philippines. He immediately
began forwarding requests for more personnel, anti-aircraft de
fense, ammunition and war equipment. In the months of July
and August alone he dispatched to Washington eight separate
warnings and urgent recommendations. On September i he
wrote personally to General Marshall explaining that a de
featist attitude was growing in the Philippines to the point

203

where it was strongly believed that the United States had actu
ally abandoned the idea of defending the Islands.

General Grunert, an old friend of General MacArthur, was
in full sympathy with the broad conception of the Philippine
Army that MacArthur had been building under such trying
handicaps. With Grunert's early recommendations that a strong
air force and submarine fleet be based in the Philippines, he
suggested that 500 American officers be assigned to help train
the Philippine Army units. After some delay 75 officers came.

As for actual help for the Islands, General Marshall and the
White House now lagged far behind the War Plans Division
of the General Staff. As early as March 1940 the WPD recom
mended that the Philippine force be augmented by a compos
ite air wing, a regular army infantry division, an anti-aircraft
regiment and additional harbor defense troops. Disinter
est, confusion, lack of trained men and equipment, and the
fear of Hitler overrunning Britain cancelled out these recom
mendations.

It was not until December 26, 1940, that Army Chief of
Staff Marshall approved a War Plans Division recommendation
that the Philippine Scouts, an integral part of the U. S. regular
forces, be increased from 6,000 to 12,000, along with addi
tions to the old gist Infantry Regiment and the two Coast
Artillery regiments, and a small increase in anti-aircraft guns.

Early in February 1941 Marshall ordered that some 60 offi
cers due to return home after their regular tour of duty in the
Islands be held there, and that the wives and families of Army
personnel be sent back to the States. Since MacArthur had long
been retired from active service the order did not affect the
residence there of Mrs. MacArthur and little Arthur.

Shortly before this, MacArthur decided to address a personal
letter to the Chief of Staff. It was in the nature of an opening
wedge, and fully outlined his plans for a Philippine Army and
what he hoped to do with it. But the immediate result of this
was nil.

Along about April of 1941 MacArthur could no longer stand
the ambiguous state of his abandonment. With complete
humility he wrote a letter to Steve Early, press secretary and
trusted advisor to the President. Early had been an old friend
204

of MacArthur's from the days before America's entry into
World War I, when his newspaper beat had been the War De
partment. He had been one of the reporters who in 1917 had
signed the letter to Secretary of War Baker praising the work
of Major Douglas MacArthur, then press censor.

MacArthur asked Early to take up with the President the
idea of recalling MacArthur to active service. The General
would be glad to undertake any assignment that might be
given him, but he pointed out that all the Army forces in
the Far East should be consolidated into a single command.
In this his concern was for his country and for the fate of the
Islands, and not for any petty personal ambition. To him the
situation was desperate. Yet he got no direct reply.

On May 29 he addressed a letter to Marshall. Three weeks
went by before Marshall answered. The vagueness of his letter
could hardly have satisfied MacArthur. The Marshall letter
read in part:

Both the Secretary of War and I are much concerned about
the situation in the Far East. During one of our discussions about
three months ago it was decided that your outstanding qualifica
tions and vast experience in the Philippines make you the logical
choice for the Army Commander in the Far East should the situa
tion approach a crisis. The Secretary has delayed recommending
your appointment as he does not feel the time has arrived for
such action. However, he has authorized me to tell you that, at
the proper time, he will recommend to the President that you
be so appointed. It is my impression that the President will ap
prove his recommendation.

It was probably shortly before he received this letter that
MacArthur wrote his second letter to Steve Early. The tenor
of this note expressed a conviction that he was not to be re
called. Consequently he had decided shortly to leave the Is
lands and go to San Antonio, Texas. Apparently his usefulness
was ended.

When there was no immediate reply, he actually ordered
Dick Marshall, his deputy chief of staff on the mission, to se
cure transportation on the first available steamer. But matters
of far greater significance were in the making.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler, against the advice of his best

205

generals, plunged into the limitless reaches of Russia. Fear and
hate of the Nazis left little room for cool appraisal of the situ
ation by the civil and military leaders in Washington. Even
professional military opinion was that the Soviets would col
lapse in from three to six weeks.

So it was that the Russian invasion, instead of bringing a re
lease from pressure sounding Britain's early doom, created a
panic-stricken belief that in a matter of weeks Russia would
be knocked out, and the triumphant Hitler would turn either
westward and attempt the invasion of England, or southward
to the Middle East and cut the life lines of the British Empire.
The fall of the Empire would then be assured.

On July 13 Harry Hopkins flew to London on a secret mis
sion for President Roosevelt that was certain to involve Amer
ica still more deeply in European intervention. A few days la
ter, while Hitler's tank divisions were rolling toward Moscow
and Leningrad, Hopkins started a hazardous air journey to
Moscow and immediately began making plans with the Red
leaders to include them in the Lend-Lease program, backed by
a promise of every possible aid from the United States. As a
consequence of this new commitment, and of Hopkins' later
optimistic report that Russia might hold out, the situation soon
became even less favorable for substantial reinforcing of the
Philippines. Russia would now share the American largesse
with Britain.

As part of the sequence of events that were to affect the Phil
ippine situation, Harry Hopkins on his return by air from
his Moscow trip joined Prime Minister Churchill on the bat
tleship Prince of Wales. Together they crossed the Atlantic to
the sea conference with Roosevelt and his military and naval
advisors. It was the first time that the "former naval person"
and the President were face to face.

In this secret sea meeting in August 1941, Roosevelt made
definite mutual commitments with Churchill that either would
go to the help of the other if Japan attacked the United States,
Britain or a third country (the Netherlands) in the Pacific.

It had long been certain that America's entrance into the
struggle against Germany would cause Japan to declare war
206

against the United States, since the island empire had publicly
announced such a course o£ action on April 21, 1941, shortly
after she signed a non-aggression pact with Russia.

Previous to this on September 28, 1940, Japan had signed a
Tripartite Treaty with Germany and Italy, in which it was
agreed that the three nations would go to war against any na
tion not then a participant in the European war or the Sino-
Japanese war that attacked any one of the three. Obviously this
was aimed directly against America. If the United States en
gaged in war against Japan, America would automatically be
involved in war against Germany and Italy.

At this time there were still strong peace elements active in
Tokyo that tried consistently throughout most of 1941 to find
some way to conciliate Washington and avoid war. But what
Washington wanted was not conciliation bu some means of
getting into the war against Hitler. The interventionists were
doing their level best. Germany was offered insult and re
peated provocations but she refused to press any retaliation.

On July 25, 1941, apparently in answer to Japan's intrusion
into Indo-China, an executive order from President Roose
velt broke off all trade relations with Japan, and Great Britain
and the Netherlands concurred in the stringent restrictions that
meant the virtual economic strangling of Japan.

The fact that Russia was now cast as an ally of Great Britain
immediately changed the status of Stalin in the eyes of the
administration. Overnight the official propaganda shifted its
slant on the Russian dictator and his American Communists
and fellow travelers. The official Communist line turned
squarely from urging the country to stay out of the European
war at all costs to strong pleas that America must now enter
this great fight to save democracy.

Russia had shrewdly played her cards in the great war game,
particularly in the way she had used her Red agents and their
accomplices in molding and directing Washington opinion.
She had helped to turn Japan's ambitions southward to
ward the priceless loot of Southeastern Asia and the lower
Pacific. She had tried to pit embittered America against Japan
rather than against Hitler, but now with her former Nazi ally

207

charging across her own European borders, she was desperately
concerned in her attempt to get America into the world strug
gle by bringing about a Japanese-American war.

The spade work had long been under way. The pro-British,
pro-internationalist, anti-Hitler groups were all ready to accept
Stalin. Back from his costly mission to Moscow, Harry Hopkins,
the President's most intimate advisor, is reported to have said:
"It is ridiculous to think of Stalin as a Communist. He is a
Russian nationalist/'

Sometime in the middle of July 1941 a two-line cable was
brought to MacArthur. It was signed by Major General
Watson, the President's military aide and confidant but still
devoted to MacArthur. The gist of it was that MacArthur was
to take no steps to leave the Philippines until he heard further
from Watson.

A few days later, as MacArthur was eating breakfast on the
Sunday morning of July 27, Manila time, he noted a small
box in the lower left-hand corner of the Manila Tribune, an
nouncing that the native Philippine Army was being called to
the colors under the command of a lieutenant general.

A second item of exciting news was a cabled report that
30,000 Japanese troops had landed in Saigon, the capital of
French Indo-China.

An hour or two later a wire was brought to him with the
single word "Congratulations." It was signed Lehrbas, an
old newspaper friend from the Washington days.

Then two more cables arrived. One was an open message
stating the President of the United States had ordered the Phil
ippine Army mobilized under MacArthur, who was to as
sume the rank of lieutenant general, as soon as. Congress could
grant the authority. Later MacArthur learned that the Presi
dent had waited until he left for Hyde Park and was well
away from the War Department and General Marshall before
he had personally directed the sending of the cables.

The second cable was signed Marshall. It spelled out the de
tails of the new assignment:
208

Effective this date there is hereby constituted a command desig
nated as the United States Army Forces in the Far East. This
command will include the Philippine Department, forces of the
Government of the Commonwealth of the Philippines called into
the service of the armed forces of the United States for the period
of the existing emergency, and such other forces as may be desig
nated to it. Headquarters of the United States Army Forces in
the Far East will be established in Manila, Philippine Islands.
You are hereby designated as Commanding General, United
States Army Forces in the Far East. . . .

So uncertainty was over. MacArthur would do his best to
make up for lost time and for the neglect and indecision
that had been meted out to him by Washington. It would not
be easy.

As yet he could have had no inkling of any possible Wash
ington-London plan that would eventually lead to abandon
ing the Philippines to their fate, while the U. S. Far Eastern
Fleet pulled out of Manila Bay and attempted to save British
interests in Malaya, Burma and India, along with the Dutch
East Indies. MacArthur had no full reports of the secret talks
and agreements arrived at between Britain and America dur
ing the Atlantic Charter meeting at sea or at the several ear
lier top secret sessions of the armed services of the two coun
tries held in London. Not for a moment could he conceive the
idea that his country might turn her back on her sacred obli
gations in the Pacific.

12
THE RACE AGAINST TIME

MacArthur lost no time in starting the ball rolling on that Sun
day morning of July 27, 1941. He put in a call for Dick Suth-

209

erland, and when he found that he had left for the golf
course, he telephoned Deputy Chief of Staff Dick Marshall to
round up Sutherland and bring him over as quickly as possi
ble.

As soon as the two officers arrived at the penthouse of the
Manila Hotel, they went to work. To start with, there would
have to be a greatly enlarged staff. Then there must be worked
out the hundred and one problems of constructing large
training centers, forming the platoon and company units of the
Philippine Army into battalions, then regiments and finally
into divisions. MacArthur's plan for the defense of the Phil
ippines had not yet reached a 50% fruition. Immediately req
uisitions must be sent to the War Department for guns, am
munition, equipment, specialist troops, officers and money.

Within an hour President Quez6n telephoned that he was
leaving for the hotel, and MacArthur and his two senior offi
cers hurried to meet him at the entrance. Quez6n, his eyes
bright with courage and hope, impulsively put his arm around
his old comrade.

"All we have, all that we are, is yours," he said dramatically.

MacArthur and his assistants got an additional lift when they
read in the Manila papers of August 13 that the American
Congress had finally passed the Extension of the Draft Act that
kept the draftees, as well as the National Guard outfits, in fed
eral service for an additional year. The bill had squeezed
through the Lower House by a vote of 203 to 202.

There were now 27 infantry, 6 armored and 2 cavalry
divisions in various degrees of training in the States, of which
4 infantry and 2 armored were fully trained and ready to be
shipped anywhere. Certainly there would no longer be any
question of lack of trained men and special units for reinforce
ments for the Islands. Surely MacArthur's pleadings for more
troops would be answered now.

Early in August the War Plans Division of the Army recom
mended sending out a National Guard anti-aircraft regiment
and a complete infantry division and increasing the several
American units already in the Philippines. There were sug
gestions for 50 pursuit planes and some 31 light bombers
and a number of items of special equipment. General Mar-
210

shall's office promptly disapproved sending the infantry divi
sion but substituted an additional tank battalion and a
maintenance company.

War supplies were actually beginning to flow westward, but
only the most enthusiastic would have called them more than
a trickle as compared with the lend-lease shipments going to
Britain, and those that soon would be en route for Murmansk
on the dangerous sea voyage to North Russia. But some help
was on the way, and hope returned that if war with Japan
could be held off for as little as six months, MacArthur
would have some 125,000 Filipino trainees armed, fairly well
trained and incorporated into divisions and in position to op
pose Japanese landings. From the start of the mission MacAr-
thur's plan had revolved around the theory that his task was
to provide manpower capable of assisting in defense during
the period of transition from commonwealth to republic. Until
that date the main responsibility for the defense of the Islands
was definitely American. But Washington had failed to honor
this obligation, refusing MacArthur real help of any kind.

Throughout August of 1941 there was no hour of rest for
MacArthur's harassed staff. On the 15th of the month the small
Philippine air force was inducted into the U. S. service by Gen
eral MacArthur personally. "Only those are fit to live who are
not afraid to die/' he told the little group of Filipino pilots
and ground men.

By September i a number of enlarged training camps were
ready, and on that day twelve Filipino regiments were
inducted into federal service. Reinforcements and supplies,
now arriving from the United States, included 425 reserve
officers, who were immediately assigned to the new units. Req
uisitions had already been made for 246 additional officers
from the rank of major to general.

It was evident that the Army War Plans Division in Wash
ington had a keener appreciation of the Philippine situation
and its needs than the Chief of Staff and his office: at least it
was less inhibited by secret plans and commitments to Britain
and Russia. A number of times its urgent recommendations
were pushed aside by General Marshall or at best only partially
adopted. On October 13 the WPD submitted to the Chief

211

of Staff a memorandum on Command in the Pacific, in which it
compared the growing strength of MacArthur army forces with
the weakness of American naval units. The War Plans Divi
sion recommended that all U. S. forces there be put under
command of General MacArthur, and that the Navy be asked
to accept the plan. The only result of that memorandum was
a skeptical comment written on it by Colonel Walter Bedell
Smith, Marshall's special aide, and one word added by the
Chief of Staff, "Hold!"

Even before MacArthur had been called back into active serv
ice he had sent suggestions to the War Department showing
how the old Orange Plan, which considered only the holding of
the Manila Bay area, could be enlarged into an over-all plan
that would include the protection of the principal Philippine
Islands from an invader. He now proposed a daring air idea
which, with sufficient time and will to carry it out, would not
only make the Philippines practically invulnerable to invasion
but would change the whole strategic conception from one of
defense to one of offense. Heavy 6-17 bombers, based on the
Islands and properly supported, could present an assault threat
to Japan and her sea lanes to the southward that could actu
ally stymie her war dreams.

This was an imaginative plan that undoubtedly caught the
fancy of President Roosevelt, as well as General H. H. (Hap)
Arnold of the Army Air Corps. It called for building a com
plete air arm, with heavy and light bombardment, augmented
by ample dive bombers and protective fighters, and based on a
string of air fields stretching the 700 or 800 miles from lower
Mindanao to upper Luzon, with shops, supply depots, air-
warning devices and all the accessories of a completely modern
and efficient air arm.

Time was the all-important factor; time to build both the
necessary ground defenses, and the air force itself; time to
consolidate an air route from Australia, northward through the
Dutch Islands and Malaya to Mindanao and then on to Manila;
time and planes and weapons — and above all else, the will-to-
212

win here in the Western Pacific. No one doubted that MacAr-
thur had this last qualification. There was still little proof that
it had been matched, as far as the Western Pacific was con
cerned, anywhere in the War Department or in the Chief of
Staff's office in Washington.

At least the whole picture of help for the Philippines under
went a great change for the better by the end of September.
MacArthur was informed of the approval of his plan to close
the narrow straits that led to the Visayan Sea in the central
area of the Islands by mounting heavy guns at the several en
trances. He was to go ahead with his plans to integrate the air
defenses of the Philippines with Australia, the Dutch East In
dies and Singapore. But there was still a reckless disregard for
dates and timing. One particular War Department plan for aid
ended its proposals with the completely unrealistic suggestion
tfiat: "This augmentation to be commenced about April 1942
and to be completed about October 1943."

The Army Air Corps threw itself into the perilous task with
high enthusiasm. The first nine of the new 6-175 landed at
Clark Field, 65 miles north of Manila, early in October 1941.
Shortly afterwards 50 P-4oE pursuit planes were unloaded at,
Manila, and Air Corps ground personnel disembarked.

But still no driving will-to-win had appeared in Washington
in army ground force circles when it came to help for Mac-
Arthur. In the United States there were now 1,400,000 soldiers
in various degrees of training. The Louisiana exercises alone
had given final polish to some 400,000 soldiers. And there
were vast quantities of tanks and guns and equipment of all
kinds rolling out of the factories. Lack of Pacific shipping still
offered a definite sea roadblock, since Britain and Russia had
highest priorities. Yet the threat of war with Japan was con
stant, and nothing of a realistic nature was being done to dis
courage her.

On October 5 Major General Lewis H. Brereton of the
Army Air Corps was brought to Washington from Florida and
was informed by General Arnold that MacArthur had asked
for him to command the Far Eastern air force, now being or
ganized. He was told that ultimately there would be four bom
bardment groups and five fighter groups — which would give

213

him by the middle of 1942, 170 heavy bombers, 86 dive bomb
ers and a total of 195 pursuit planes. In time he would have
the necessary air-warning installations and the various ground
units, mobile air depots and other special services. Brereton was
skeptical when he left General Arnold's office and reported
to General Marshall. The Chief of Staff gave him a fill-in, em
phasizing the new strategic concept for the Islands. Marshall
showed him prepared studies and had him read the report by
MacArthur that gave him the big picture. Later Brereton was
handed a secret sealed letter marked 'Tor General MacAr
thur *s eyes only."

Brereton was still skeptical. He pointed out to the Chief of
Staff that if the situation in the Far East became critical the
presence of a strong and unprotected force of 6-175 might so
aggravate the tension that this air threat, instead of acting as a
deterrent to war, might actually spark a Japanese decision
to attack. There had been little or no effort in Washington at
secrecy in this sudden decision to build up the American air
and ground power in the Philippines. It was a peculiar and un
accountable procedure thus blatantly to advertise the reinforce
ments now being hurried to the Manila Bay area. It was al
most as if Washington were actually inviting Japan to attack the
Philippines before the Islands could be made strong enough to
resist invasion. Common sense seemingly would have dictated
that utmost secrecy be used in this dangerous enterprise.

Brereton asked Marshall how much time he would have and
what was the War Department's estimate when Japan might be
expected to attack. He was told that it was the opinion of the
High Command that hostilities would probably not begin be
fore April i, 1942. By that time the required air reinforce
ments and auxiliaries would be in place, and MacArthur's army
ground requirements would be completed.

It was now early October of 1941; but April i, 1942, when
MacArthur would be fully prepared, was still almost six
months off. Even six months was little enough to do the job.

214

On November 3 Brereton arrived in Manila on the Clipper
from Guam. He reported at once to MacArthur's headquarters
and then with Chief of Staff Sutherland was driven to the Ma
nila Hotel where MacArthur lived. His welcome was most cor
dial. Brereton turned over the confidential letter from Gen
eral Marshall. MacArthur read it and his eyes sparkled.

"Dick/1 he exclaimed to Sutherland, pounding his desk in a
characteristic gesture, "they are going to give us everything
we have asked for."

Once again came up that fatal date of April i, 1942. It had
at least been partially sold to MacArthur, too. It was a conveni
ent target day to use here in the far-away Islands, where the
threat of war was so near at hand and the chances of defeat so
strong. Yet it seems incomprehensible that MacArthur, the
realist, could actually have believed that Japan would accom
modate her future enemies by giving them five more peaceful
months to build a great air and ground force for both defense
and potential assault against her. But it can be assumed that
he knew almost nothing of the underlying machinations in
Washington. Morale here in the Islands was already shaky and
this promise of time was priceless in helping him to instill a
mood of confidence and a fighting spirit.

MacArthur, clearly, was thinking how air bases in Australia
and the Dutch Indies and Malaya must be integrated into
Philippine defense for the coming war. Three days after Brere-
ton's arrival MacArthur sent him on a swift survey of friendly
fields as far south as Rabaul, Lae and Port Moresby in New
Guinea. When Brereton returned, MacArthur was far less op
timistic about the time element than before. The startling se
quence of events indicated clearly that instead of any attempt
at conciliation, Washington was laying down terms that Japan
could accept only by withdrawing completely from her con
quests in China and in the Far East.

On October 17 the bitter, uncompromising War Minister
To jo had replaced the far more reasonable Prince Konoye as
Japanese Premier. On November 18 Special Envoy Kurusu
caught the China Clipper at Manila, en route for Washington.

215

That night MacArthur, still the realist, said to his intimate
staff: "I know this fellow Kurusu. He's been completely dis
credited in Tokyo, and his being sent to Washington now
means he is to take part in some dirty job. This may be it."

November 4 had considerable local significance for the wor
ried people of Manila; early in the afternoon the 4th Marine
Regiment arrived straight from the Japanese hotbed of Shang
hai. As Commander-in-Chief of the Army forces, MacArthur
could not help but wish that the fine regiment could be under
him instead of being a part of Admiral Hart's command.

On this same November 4 Secretary of State Gordell Hull,
himself an interventionist, told the Cabinet in Washington that
the conversations with the Japanese representatives were going
badly. On November 7 he reiterated that there seemed every
possibility of early war with Japan.

November 7 was to assume the greatest importance. At a
Cabinet meeting that day President Roosevelt solemnly polled
the several secretaries as to whether they believed the Ameri
can people would follow him into a war if Japan attacked. The
vote was unanimously in the affirmative.

The fate of Russia hung largely on the fact that Hitler's
forces besieging both Moscow and Leningrad were shortly to
face what turned out to be the hardest Russian winter in many
years. Britain was incessant in her pleas for America's active
participation in the European war. Hitler must come first, she
insisted: then she would throw her full weight in the Pacific
war. But all the propaganda forces of the administration,
coupled with those of the interventionists, who now ranged
from Communist agents and their Red sympathizers to the in
tensely pro-British, Republican Cabinet members Stimson and
Knox, still could not arouse the American people to accept
ing a war with Germany. This left an attack by Japan as the
only possible and sure-fire way to draw America into the war in
Europe.

For some time a fairly large proportion of the American fleet
had been stationed in the Atlantic. The remainder, save the
small Far Eastern squadron, had been directed personally by the
President to base in Pearl Harbor. Admiral James Otto Rich
ardson had protested violently, stating that the fleet was vul-
216

nerable at Pearl Harbor and besides was undermanned and un
prepared for war and should be pulled back to the Pacific
Coast until it was brought up to battle strength. For this pro
test he was relieved of command in January 1941. Admiral
Husband E. Kimmel replaced Richardson, and in March he was
forced to send to the Atlantic three battleships, one aircraft
carrier, four light cruisers and eighteen destroyers. Of Kimmel's
three remaining carriers, one was sent to a Pacific Coast drydock
for overhauling in the fall of 1941.

The Washington policy played directly into the hands of
Japanese militarists. Japan *s military intrusion in China and
subsequently into Indo-China had made her the whipping boy
for the men around the White House who wanted war. Appar
ently no offers by Japan, even the pledge to withdraw from
the Tripartite Treaty with Germany and Italy and a virtual
withdrawal from all southern China, had any effect on the
Washington crowd. The voices of Churchill, Stalin and Roose
velt and the great propaganda machine insistently demanding
America's entry into the war were apparently too powerful to
overcome.

On November 13 MacArthur read the report of Navy Secre
tary Knox's speech, warning of the grave national peril ahead.
That same day a meeting of the operations chiefs of the vari
ous armed services in Washington decided on the necessity — or
at least the gesture — of pushing forward by a full month the
troop movement scheduled for the Philippines. Reinforce
ments that were to be sent to Manila in January were ordered
to be shipped in December. Certain anti-aircraft guns and am
munition earmarked for Hawaii and Panama were directed to
be re-routed to Manila.

MacArthur felt now that there had finally come to the
Washington leaders a new sense of their responsibility to the
Philippines. It seemed apparent that Washington was genu
inely concerned in pushing reinforcements across the Pacific.
Shipping was still a problem, but the guns, planes, men and
supplies were at last rolling westward. MacArthur had been
cabled that on December i alone 19,000 troops were scheduled
to leave San Francisco for Manila.

Some weird sense of unreality seemed still to affect General

217

Marshall. How much he was influenced by secret White House
orders and commitments may never be known. Certain of his
actions were unexplainable. At an important staff meeting on
November 26 the official notes of the conference, reporting an
over-all statement by the Chief of Staff, read:

While the President and Mr. Hull anticipate a possible assault
on the Philippines, General Marshall said that he did not see
this as a probability because the hazards would be too great for
the Japanese. . . .

The War Plans Division's recommendation for a unified
Philippine command under General MacArthur, which had
been shoved aside and marked "Hold" by the Chief of Staff,
now assumed a certain significance. The order to delay the
decision not only went against every modern conception of the
need for unity of command in a field of operation, but it
forced MacArthur openly to oppose the demands of Admiral
Thomas C. Hart in Manila Bay that tactical command by the
Navy was necessary over Army Air Corps elements when they
were operating in conjunction with the Navy. In plain words,
this meant that in any joint Navy-Air action the Navy would
be in over-all command. The proposal was forwarded to Wash
ington with MacArthur's comment that it was "entirely objec
tionable'* to him.

The Army War Plans Division supported MacArthur, and
there was a lively exchange of cables and hurried conferences
in Washington. Strangely enough General Marshall seemed far
more disturbed over the Navy's unfavorable reaction than over
MacArthur's. As late as November 28 Marshall tersely cabled
MacArthur:

I was disturbed to receive your note of November 7 transmit
ting correspondence between Hart and yourself. I was more dis
turbed when Stark sent over to me your letter to him of October
18. However, your cable of November 28 stating "intimate liaison
and cooperation and cordial relations exist between Army and
Navy" was reassuring. . . .

218

In Washington the diplomatic crisis was moving toward a final
showdown. On November 20 the Japanese envoys presented
what was virtually their last attempt at conciliation.

Six days later Secretary Hull answered with his Ten Points,
which if accepted would mean the total eclipse of Japan in
Asia. War was certain from this key date of November 26,
1941. On the following morning a report of "hostile action pos
sible at any moment" was sent to MacArthur. It was the first
of several war warnings dispatched from Washington, and Mac-
Arthur acted upon them at once.

He had at that moment as the hard core of his defense a to
tal of 2,504 officers and 28,591 enlisted men in the United
States Regular Army establishment. Of this last figure, 16,634
were Americans and 11,957 were finely trained Filipino Scouts,
who years before had been incorporated into the regular U. S.
forces. Of the enlisted total of 16,634 Americans, 4,940 be
longed to the air force. The only Regular Army infantry regi
ment on the Islands was the reliable 3ist Infantry, which had
seen service in the Siberian Expedition toward the end of
World War I and during the Japanese occupation there. The
remainder of the Americans, outside the National Guard anti
aircraft tank and special artillery units, were assigned to the
harbor defense, based for the most part on Corregidor.

The gist, with two Scout regiments and artillery units, com
prised the Philippine Division. The Philippine Division with
the 26th Cavalry and the small First Regular Division of the
Philippine Army, built around former constabulary troops,
made up the only seasoned holding forces MacArthur had with
which to meet a determined invasion.

Besides these few well-armed and well-trained troops he had
a total of something more than 110,000 men of the Philippine
National Army. One regiment of each native division had had
three months7 regimental training; another had two months;
and the third regiment less than a month. These native divi
sions had little or no artillery, and to the outfits on Luzon ar
tillery and tank battalions were to be assigned from the head
quarters pool as needed.

219

All the ground forces under General MacArthur were
grouped into five major commands. The most important, the
North Luzon force, was assigned to Major General Jona
than M. (Skinny) Wainwright, and while it consisted of three
Philippine Army Reserve divisions its only seasoned troops
were the 26th Cavalry and certain other small Scout out
fits and a magnificent demolition group of engineers under
Colonel Hugh J. Casey. This North force was assigned positions
that would cover the landing beaches at Aparri and Vigan in
the north, and the vulnerable shores of Lingayen Gulf, some
no miles above Manila.

It was evident to MacArthur that the first effort of the Japa
nese would be to attack his small, quarter-built air force. From
the days of the Billy Mitchell trial, almost fifteen years before
this, he had held high the potential role of air power. But now
he was fearful that his tiny force could not last long under the
smothering attacks that the overwhelmingly larger Japanese
air forces would lay down.

As a precautionary measure he directed his chief of staff to
base the 35 long-range bombers at Del Monte Field in the
southern island of Mindanao. He was conscious of how small
the protecting force of fighters was and how helpless the prac
tically undefended Clark Field, with no dispersal areas, would
be against heavy air attack.

A record of MacArthur's exact air strength shows that he
had 194 modern aircraft on hand, of which 107 were opera
tional, or ready for combat. Only Clark Field could be consid
ered modern, with a runway long enough to accommodate the
6-175. At Del Monte there were two crude strips on which the
Fortresses could land and take off, and the start had been made
to build repair shops and supply depots, and within two or
three months they would have a fairly modern bomber field.
Up and down the almost i,ooo-mile-long chain of islands, sites
for a score and more of fighter fields had been laid out, only
Nichols Field outside Manila was near completion, and four or
220

five others were far enough along to be classed as serviceable
for fighters only.

On the morning of December 7 there were eight U. S. troop
ships bound for Manila with reinforcements that would have
more than doubled the entire American-born forces there.
They were bringing badly needed guns, ammunition, dive
bombers and pursuit planes. In the sky lanes an entire addi
tional bomber group of 30 B-iys was starting on the Pacific
bomber route that led to the Islands.

But even though the twin threat of "too little and too late"
now thundered down on him, MacArthur was determined that
he would still not be lost. If the Japanese suddenly struck these
Islands, MacArthur, even with the little he had, could hold
Corregidor and the entrance to Manila Bay for at least four
months, time enough for American air power and the fleet to
come to his relief.

In Hawaii there were 57,000 ground and anti-aircraft troops
and the finest planes America possessed, with complete warning
installations and well-guarded fields. Here, too, the great Pa
cific fleet was based. It seemed only reasonable that if the Phil
ippines were suddenly attacked, there would sooner or later
start from this Pacific Gibraltar an avenging sea and air ar
mada that would be able to penetrate any Japanese blockade
and bring MacArthur the tools of war and victory.

With the ample warning sent him on November 27, Mac-
Arthur calmly went about his final preparation. Every neces
sary disposition was made. Every man and gun and plane was
on the alert. Apparently there was nothing more that he could
do.

It was late on the Sunday night of December 7 (Manila
time) when he turned out the light in his bedroom in the
penthouse of the Manila Hotel.

Tomorrow might well be the day. The Navy's communica
tion center in the great tunnel on Corregidor had been fur
nishing him with decoded Japanese intercepts that had been
picked up between Tokyo and its Embassy in Washington.
The messages were in the most secret of the Japanese codes
and even without subsequent warnings from Washington it was

221

clear to both General MacArthur and Admiral Hart that war
was certain and would come at any moment.

Both officers were well aware of the fact that Japan had
started all three of her modern wars with surprise attacks:
against China's helpless fleet in 1894; against Russia's Asiatic
fleet at Port Arthur ten years later; and against the German
stronghold at Tsingtao in Shantung province on the mainland
of China in 1914. Each attack synchronized almost to a min
ute with a formal declaration of war. It was recognized that a
sudden surprise attack against a key spot was a fully under
stood part of her war strategy. The only real uncertainty was
where it would come.

The ground forces in the Philippines might be assailed and
forced back into their final prepared defenses, but certainly
they would not be surprised. They were as ready as they could
be with their inadequate defenses on this night of December 7,
Manila time.

[Thirteen years after the events occurred a remarkable book
by Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald, U.S.N. Ret., published
by Devin-Adair, shed considerable new light on the highly con
troversial question of just how America got into the war
against Japan. It is titled The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor,
and bears the sub-title, The Washington Contribution to the
Japanese Attack. In a carefully documented defense of Ad
miral Kimmel, the naval commander at Pearl Harbor, Theo
bald piles up a vast amount of evidence that points to the as
sumption that not only did President Roosevelt plot the war
but it seems he must have been assisted in the secret plans
of leaving Pearl Harbor open for surprise attack by both Ad
miral Stark and General Marshall. Much of Theobald's case
is based on the fact that of the eight U. S.-made Japanese Pur
ple Machines that could decode the most secret of the Japa
nese codes styled Magic, none had been sent to Pearl Harbor,
although there was one in the Navy Communication center in
Cavite, that was later moved to Corregidor, and one in London.
It so happened, however, that the complicated machine in
Manila Bay never worked properly, so neither Hart nor Mac-
Arthur had the advantage of the secret messages sent between
Tokyo and the Japanese Embassy in Washington. Among the
222

messages decoded in Washington were the series from Tokyo
directing Japanese agents in Hawaii to report constantly on
the exact locations of the American warships in Pearl Har
bor. The book points out that the unfortunate commanders
were smeared and ruined in order to clear General Marshall,
Admiral Stark and President Roosevelt of responsibility. The
large share of credit for awakening the American public to the
tragic origins of Pearl Harbor belongs to the masterful expos£
by George Morgenstern in Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Se
cret War, followed later by Frederic R. Sanborn's Design for
War.]

13
"/ SHALL RETURN/"

It was 3:40 on Monday morning, December 8, Manila time,
when General MacArthur was awakened by the ringing of the
special telephone on his night table. It was connected by direct
wire to Dick Sutherland's office at i Victoria Street, where the
chief of staff had been sleeping on an army cot for several
nights.

"Jap planes are attacking Pearl Harbor/1 Sutherland tersely
announced.

"Pearl Harbor?" MacArthur questioned incredulously. "Why
that should be our strongest point!"

He was assured that a commercial cable had substantiated
the official report. Yet he could hardly believe that the vast
sea- and air-screen around Hawaii could have been successfully
penetrated by enemy bombers.

The defenses at Pearl Harbor were far different from his
own inadequate air, sea and ground makeshifts. For the past
five days his single radar functioning in northwestern Luzon
had each dawn been picking up approaching Japanese aircraft,

223

and he had approved sending up fighter squadrons to try to in
tercept them. The attempts were unsuccessful, but the air forces
had been on full alert.

The tactical handling of the air forces was completely in
the hands of General Brereton and his staff. Several days be
fore this tragic morning, MacArthur had ordered the 35 B-iy
Flying Fortresses 500 miles south to the safety of Del Monte
Field on Mindanao. After some delay half the great ships were
sent on below, but for some reason 17 still remained at Clark
Field above Manila.

An explanation that has some validity is that the partially
completed Del Monte Field had room for only four squadrons
of bombers. When the two squadrons from Clark Field arrived,
there was still room for two more squadrons, which could have
included the remaining 6-173 in Luzon. But the 7th Bombard
ment Group comprising four squadrons was shortly expected
from the Pacific. It is possible that it was for this reason that
the two remaining squadrons at Clark Field were not dis
patched before hostilities opened, as MacArthur had in
structed.

At 9:30 A.M. a large force of enemy bombers was reported
over Lingayen Gulf heading toward Manila. Pursuit squadrons
were immediately sent up to intercept them. At the same time,
as a safety measure, the 17 6-175 at Clark Field were ordered
into the air. But the enemy bombers suddenly shifted their
course, turned northward and bombed the summer capital at
Baguio.

The all clear was now sounded at Clark Field, and the fight
ers returned for refueling. The 17 Fortresses had gas enough to
stay in the air for a full 10 hours, but instead of being allowed
to take advantage of this safety of the limitless skies, the com
mander of Clark Field ordered them to return to the field.

At 11:45 a report came in of an enemy formation over Lin
gayen Gulf less than 100 miles away and moving southward.
The fighter planes were being gassed while the pilots grabbed
a bit of lunch. A half hour later four of the squadrons were in
the air and the last of the P-4O fighters were starting to take
off when high in the sky appeared an enemy bombardment
force, together with dive bombers, escorted by fighters flown
224

from carriers somewhere in the China Sea. In a matter of min
utes 15 of the priceless 6-175 on the ground were completely
destroyed and the other two were seriously damaged. Clark
Field's anti-aircraft defenses proved totally inadequate; the en
emy attackers systematically wrecked and burned planes, sup
ply depots, installations and every vestige of the one modern
airfield in all the Islands.

It was a catastrophe of the first magnitude. From the mo
ment that the news reached MacArthur, he spoke no single
word of official censure against the air commanders who had
failed to move their bombers to Mindanao as he had directed.
Instead of obeying this instruction they had ordered the bomb
ers to return to the landing field from the safety of the skies
after the first enemy bombers flew inland. The Fortresses had
been caught like sitting ducks. It was an irreparable loss, but it
was the fortune of war.

At once confusing and conflicting reports were made by Gen
eral Brereton and certain members of his staff. The stark facts
were clear enough in themselves: MacArthur had lost by noon
of the first day of the war roughly half of his bombers and
modern fighters.

His air force was simply too small to survive the attacking
Japanese air armada. Had it survived this first day, in a very
short time its entire destruction would have been inevitable.
There was almost a total lack of dispersal areas, and the
ground defenses were all but nonexistent. Had every fighter
been in the air that fatal noon their almost certain destruction
would have come either in aerial combat or when gas shortage
forced them to land. It seems certain that most of them would
have been destroyed within a day or two by sheer enemy su
periority of numbers.

Very soon there were issued in Washington sponsored ver
sions that were little less than veiled charges against the lack
of foresight and the bad judgment of General MacArthur and
his chief of staff. MacArthur personally became the target of
the bitter accusations that were never quite to stop.

So angry was the continued criticism heaped upon both him
self and Brereton that on June 25, 1943 — a full year and a half
after the occurrence — he issued from Brisbane a formal state-

225

ment that should have closed the account. It is a direct and
simple recital of events:

25 June 45

My attention has been called to a number of statements im
plying criticism of the handling of the Air Forces by their Com
mander, Major General Lewis EL Brereton, in the Philippines
at the beginning of the war, the implication being that through
neglect or faulty judgment he failed to take proper security
measures resulting in the destruction of his Air Force on the
Ground. Such statements do grave injustice to this officer and his
gallant subordinates. General Brereton had in the Philippines
only a token force which, excluding trainers and hopelessly obso
lete planes, comprised but 35 heavy bombers and 72 fighters. He
was further greatly handicapped by lack of airdromes, there being
only one in Luzon, Clark Field, that was usable by heavy bombers
and only five usable by fighters. Many airdromes were under con
struction in the Philippines, but they were not completed and
available on December 7. The entire command had been placed
on a full war basis two weeks before the outbreak and had taken
up defensive dispositions. Security and reconnaissance patrols had
been flown regularly. Two of the 4 squadrons of heavy bombers
were dispatched to Mindanao out of reach of enemy bombers but
from where they would attack any target in the Philippine area
and, by topping off at Clark Field, reach the limit of their range
to the north. Forty-eight hours before the attack, the command
was alerted. General Brereton, on December 6, informed his sub
ordinate commanders that war was imminent and ordered all
officers and combat crews to be ready for duty at all times. . . .

His tiny air force was crushed by sheer weight of numbers. Its
combat crews fought valiantly but were hopelessly outnumbered.
Due to the shortage of fighters and to the lack of dispersal fields,
the bombers, the famous igth Group, were withdrawn to Min
danao, and later, to Australia and Java where they were soon
engrossed in the struggle for the Dutch East Indies and Australia.
Back in the Philippines, our fighters, under the brilliant leader
ship of the late General H. H. George, maintained the unequal
struggle with the greatest persistency and success, finally succumb
ing to inevitable attrition, their last memorable attack being on
Subic Bay, March 2, when only four were available to strike.

The Air Forces in the Philippines planned carefully and exe-
226

cuted valiantly. Any attempt to decry their record can spring
only from a complete lack of knowledge of the facts involved.

The MacArthur detractors never ceased their attacks and
:ontinued pounding away on the charge that he had been
juilty of some terrible neglect in command.

[A number of years after the events occurred General Mac-
Arthur was asked by Dr. Lewis Morton, distinguished army
historian, to comment on certain decisions reached in regard to
:he Pacific strategy. One of these questions was: "Did Hq.
LJSAFFE believe on 8 December, after it was learned that
Pearl Harbor had been attacked but before the attack on Clark
Field, that it had authority under existing directives and war
plans to attack (by air) Japanese territory or was it believed
:hat action should be deferred until the Japanese made the
irst 'overt' move?" General MacArthur wrote out the following
mswer:

My orders were explicit not to initiate hostilities against the
Japanese. The Philippines while a possession of the U. S. had,
so far as war was concerned, a somewhat indeterminate inter
national position in many minds, especially the Filipinos and
their government. While I personally had not the slightest doubt
we would be attacked great local hope existed that this would
not be the case. Instructions from Washington were very def
inite to wait until the Japanese made the first 'overt' move. Even
without such a directive, practical limitations made it unfeasible
to take the offensive. The only possibility lay in striking from the
air but the relative weakness of our air force precluded any chance
of success for such an operation. Our only aggressive potential
consisted of about thirty-six B-iys. Their only possible target was
the enemy's fields on Formosa. Our advance fields in Luzon were
still incomplete and our fighters from our other fields in Luzon
were too far away from Formosa to protect our bombers in a
Formosa attack. They did not have the necessary radius of action.
The enemy's air force based on excellent fields outnumbered ours
many times. In addition, he had a mobile force on carriers which
we entirely lacked. Our basic mission directive had confined our
operations to our own national waters so no outside reconnais
sance had been possible. The exact location of enemy targets was
therefore not known. Our air force was in process of integration,

227

radar defenses not yet operative and personnel raw and inexpe
rienced. An attack under such conditions would have been
doomed to total failure. As a matter of fact, I had for safety
reasons ordered the bombers to withdraw from Luzon to Min
danao to be out of enemy range. This was in process of accom
plishment when the enemy's air attacked. I did not know it at
the time, but later understood that General Brereton had sug
gested to the Chief of Staff, General Sutherland, that we should
initiate operations by an attempted "strike" at Formosa. Had
such a suggestion been made to me, I would have unequivocally
disapproved. In my opinion it would have been suicidal as well
as in direct defiance of my basic directive.]

With ruthless efficiency the Japanese war machine drove south
ward through the South China Sea. The concentrations of
planes, ships and ground forces in the ports of Formosa, lower
China and Indo-China that had been steadily growing now
turned into deadly fighting outfits. Proud Hong Kong was the
first point to fall, the British garrison crumpling before the en
emy attacks and surrendering within one week after war be
gan. Five hours before the Japanese bombers first cut through
the Philippine skies, a heavy aerial offensive struck at British
dromes on Singapore Island, with serious damages to planes
and installations. The sun had barely come up when another
strong force attacked British airfields in North Malaya. Every
where the results were the same; planes were destroyed on the
fields, and installations were ruined. Within three days British
air strength in Upper Malaya was a thing of the past; 80%
of the defending planes had been destroyed, many of them
burned on the ground — proving once more that there can be no
second-best air force.

MacArthur followed the disastrous news as it trickled in to
him. There was cause for grimness in the report of the sinking
of the battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse 50 miles off the
Malayan coast on December 10. Within two hours the only two
Allied battleships in the whole Western Pacific and in the seas
of Southeastern Asia had gone to the bottom.

Meanwhile the Japanese continued the systematic bombing
228

of the naval installations at Cavite and Manila Bay and the de
liberate destruction of what still remained of MacArthur's tiny
air force. Admiral Hart had kept back in Manila Bay 3 of his
14 over-age destroyers, a small number of his 37 submarines,
and all 6 of his swift PT boats. A number of merchant ships
were still in the bay, but so eager were the Japanese to elimi
nate the few fighter planes that had survived their initial as
saults that they did not bother to bomb the vessels, and only
one or two did not escape. Within a few days only a handful of
pursuit planes remained on Luzon. In order to prevent the
overwhelming Jap Air Force from destroying the remaining 15
6-17 bombers and the dozen long-range naval patrol planes
still on Mindanao, they were ordered on December 15 to Aus
tralia and the Dutch East Indies.

Two days after the war began successful Japanese landings
were made at Aparri in the extreme north in Luzon and at Vi-
gan on the northwestern shoreline. Soon Jap fighters were op
erating out of the Aparri area. On December 12, landings
were made at Legaspi at the southeastern end of Luzon. Mac-
Arthur recognized all these as only preliminary moves and not
the real invasion.

He refused to be drawn into the trap of being thrown off
balance and disrupting his plans by sending the bulk of his
ground forces to the far northern coastal points and thus weak
ening his defenses along Lingayen Gulf. Both he and General
Wainwright were confident the main landings would take place
there. Ten days later some 80 Japanese ships of all kinds
dropped anchor in the gulf. The landings were bitterly op
posed, but there could be no doubt about the outcome.

MacArthur's air force by this time had been almost com
pletely destroyed. All but a token force of the Navy had been
dispatched to other waters and to other distant causes. Fewer
submarines than you could count on one hand, and little more
than that number of planes were left to face the mighty Japa
nese landing force, covered by carrier-based fighter planes and
a fleet of warships. No real attempt at landing was made until
the enemy had been assured that virtually no air or sea force
was left to oppose him.

General Wainwright at Lingayen Gulf had his orders. He

229

was to fight a stubborn delaying action, but he was to take no
chances of having his forces enveloped and destroyed. Quickly
the pattern of defense developed, once it was evident that he
was unable to deny the landing beaches to the Japanese at Lin-
gayen. Already the enemy forces from Vigan had marched
south and, joining up with the main invasion group at Linga-
yen, begun the great drive down the 4o-mile-wide Central Val
ley toward Manila.

Numerous streams cut across the main north-south roads,
and before each river crossing the bridge roadblocks were set
up by Hugh Casey's band of engineers and demolition teams.
When the advancing Japanese patrols were checked, enemy
tanks and guns would be brought up to blast out the defend
ers, Wainwright's men would slowly give way, and Casey's dy
namiters would blow the bridges.

Five well-placed lines of defense were laid out across the
Central Valley long before the actual landings. Here strong ef
forts were made to hold up the enemy advances. The delaying
operations would be repeated again and again. Stand and fight;
slip back and dynamite. Each main withdrawal required an ex
actness of timing that ordinarily would not have been at
tempted with other than experienced troops. Full regiments
and even larger bodies were at times engaged, but the funda
mental defense tactics were to hold until the last possible hour,
never permit the advancing enemy to infiltrate through the
flanks and then double-envelop. For the most part it produced
effective delay, despite the stark fact that the Philippine Na
tional Army was made up of poorly armed and only partially
trained troops. MacArthur and his officers and men were now
paying a terrible price for the neglect and unconcern that had
long been handed out to them by a Washington absorbed with
European affairs.

Far to the south below Manila the attenuated Philippine-
American groups were forced to give way quickly behind the
landing beaches on Lamon Bay. Sudden panic was thrown into
the defenders when a fairly heavy landing was made to the
north of Legaspi. Using his two well-trained constabulary regi
ments and self-propelled guns as the core of his resistance, Ma
jor General George M. Parker fought hard to stem the tide of
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The fighting on Luzon and the side-slip into Bataan.

Japanese, while the rest of his three southern divisions with
drew northward through Manila. These included his forces on
the western shore of Batangas on the China Sea. To avoid cap
ture they must race through Manila, then try to cross the twin
Calumpit bridges. Once over the bridges they could side-slip
westward into the rugged fastness of Bataan peninsula. At best
it was a desperate gamble.

But it proved to be a perfectly executed withdrawal by these
southern divisions. Above the city and the key bridges the
North Luzon forces under Wainwright fought a stubborn hold
ing operation which gave the soldiers southward the days and
hours they needed. The national Filipino troops, poorly
trained and armed, battled valiantly beside their more experi
enced comrades.

The British forces in Malaya were facing the same problem,
but their judgment in dealing with it was an entirely different
story. In their desire to block the Japanese drive southward
toward the impregnable base of Singapore, the British com
manders became victims of a hopeful philosophy of jungle se
curity which was disastrous for them.

The British had relied on the adverse weather. No enemy
landings on Malaya, they reasoned, could be made during the
monsoon season. And if the Japanese did land, they insisted,
they could not penetrate the jungle in force.

But the specially trained and equipped Japanese battalions
infiltrated the tropical forests and deadly swamps, slipped and
slithered around the British strong points and finally over
whelmed them in a deadly double envelopment. Thus the
jungle-and-monsoon complex proved as costly to the British as
their Singapore complex which considered the island bastion
invulnerable. When the terrible test came Singapore's great
guns pointed helplessly toward the sea, while the air above it
immediately became Japanese territory, and soon the ground
approaches from the north fell into enemy hands.

The over-all Japanese strategy was now clear. The Philip
pines were surrounded on three sides by strong enemy air and
sea bases; to the north lay Formosa; on the west across the
South China Sea were enemy concentrations in Indo-China
232

and on the Chinese mainland; and to the east in the Pacific
were the Palau Islands, the Marianas and the great island for
tress of Truk in the Carolines, all in Japanese hands. Below lay
the loot worthy of a war.

No longer was there any reality in the former hopes of Mac-
Arthur or of the imaginative minds in the War Plans Divi
sion in Washington that bombers based in the Philippines and
aided by submarines could cut the water route through the
South China Sea and deny the Japanese the oil and supplies
that could power their war machine.

Everywhere MacArthur was on the defensive and fighting for
his life. The news that all eight of the heavy battleships, with
two cruisers and several destroyers of the U. S. Pacific fleet, had
either been sunk in the shallow, muddy bottom of Pearl Har
bor or put out of action in the first hour or two of the attack
gave the Washington crowd the excuse to maintain secretly
that the Philippines must now be left to their fate. In the Pa
cific there were still three great aircraft carriers and their ac
companying swift cruisers and destroyers and submarines. In
the Atlantic there were three more American carriers and a
fleet of battleships, with two of the newest and most powerful
battleships in the world. As late as March 1941 this Atlantic
fleet had been augmented by three battleships, four light cruis
ers and eighteen destroyers from the Pacific fleet based at Pearl
Harbor.

Yet no amount of realism or common sense could keep Mac-
Arthur, Quez6n and the men around them from feeling that,
by some magic, real help might still be sent the 20,000 and
more American soldiers, marines and naval personnel and their
100,000 Filipino comrades fighting with their backs to the wall.
Britain was not in immediate danger. Germany and Russia
were locked in a death struggle. Only here in the Philippines
were Americans fighting, and only here was there a definite
pledged national obligation backed by more than 40 years of
mutual trust and endeavor.

233

One of the first steps taken by General George Marshall in re
sponse to the challenging situation came five days after the
Pearl Harbor disaster, when he ordered Brigadier General Ei
senhower to report immediately to Washington from San An
tonio, Texas. During the Texas-Louisiana maneuvers, Eisen
hower had made a brilliant record as chief of staff of General
Walter Krueger's Third Army. And now in a twenty-minute
talk Marshall laid out the broad background of the American
war plans as they fitted into the disastrous upset resulting from
Japan's attack on Pearl.

Long before this tragic debacle of December 7 Marshall had
been won over completely to Roosevelt's philosophy that the
first and commanding demand on America was to help check
Hitler's drive in Russia, thus keeping the Soviets in the war,
and at the same time to go to the aid of Britain and her en
dangered empire. It was immediately necessary, however, to
try to convince the American public that everything possible
was being done for the relief of their own soldiers and their
Filipino comrades in the Philippines.

The administration and the armed services consequently
must at least go through the motions of trying to get help to
MacArthur, whose brave stand against great odds had almost
overnight made him a world hero. At the same time it was ex
pedient for them to build up this fighting figure, if for no other
reason than to shift the growing criticism away from the Pearl
Harbor disaster.

Eisenhower was sent for because his four years as chief of
staff of the Philippine military mission had presumably given
him a background of the entire Far Eastern situation. Marshall
ended his short conference with the blunt question, "What
should be our general line of action?"

Eisenhower asked for a few hours to ponder the problem.
Ten thousand miles away doom was closing down on the chief
under whom he had served seven years. Here at hand, how
ever, was General Marshall, who probably would be the domi
nant military figure in the global struggle that lay ahead, and
who, as Army Chief of Staff, held a position of almost unliin-
234

ited authority. To fathom precisely just what lay in his senior
officer's mind was a rare ability possessed by temporary Briga
dier General Eisenhower. In this particular case he had only to
translate into a plausible military plan his surmises of what
General Marshall wanted. This was a fairly simple task for the
experienced staff officer, who knew that the accepted over-all
strategy was to bend every immediate effort to defeat Hitler,
and later to settle with Japan.

No such harsh word as "abandonment" was used by Eisen
hower when he reported back to the Chief of Staff. Since the
Navy refused to sponsor any sea or air guarantee, obviously no
real rescue or relief could be attempted. At present there could
be little more done than to hire adventurous old tramp ships in
Australia and the East Indies to try to run the Japanese block
ade and land supplies.

Australia, he held, must quickly be built up as a great base
of operations for the future, and the sea lane from the States
protected by swiftly built Southern Pacific island bases. Mac-
Arthur and his American and Filipino soldiers, with thousands
of American civilians and a nation of 17,000,000 still under the
legal and moral protection of the United States, must for the
present be sacrificed to what was accepted in Washington as
the larger needs of Europe and North Africa, the Middle East
and India and the demands of Russia. In a gesture of com
plete agreement Marshall turned from Eisenhower's verbal re
port with the order, "Do your best to save them."

No one will ever be quite able to estimate accurately how
much could have been done in aiding the Philippines if there
had been a stubborn will-to-win. Formal cables signed by Mar
shall indicate that there was much urging from the Chief of
Staff's office to American army officers in Australia and the
Dutch Islands to bribe and bully ship captains and crews to un
dertake the perilous attempt to run the Japanese blockade and
take supply ships to the Philippines. The able and driving Pat
rick J. Hurley, one-time Secretary of War, now commissioned
a reserve brigadier general, flew to Australia to attempt to push
through the blockade-running; and Colonel John A. Robenson
was sent on north to Java with a suitcase full of American cur
rency. But it was too late.

235

No words by Marshall could change the basic responsibility
for the tragedy o£ unpreparedness that he had allowed to de
velop in the Philippines. The very hectic and extravagant ef
fort now being made obviously came when it was too late
for anything but the most desperate and all-out attempt at re
lief. Even a real effort might have failed to do much more than
hearten and build up the morale of the helpless and belea
guered force, but that at least would have been important in
offsetting the mood of abandonment that had captured the
men.

MacArthur on Corregidor repeatedly argued with Washing
ton that the enemy's sea blockade was thin and penetrable, and
that a supreme effort should be made to push blockade-runners
directly across the Pacific. All that might have been attempted
by Washington certainly was not being done, granted that the
risks were very great.

All told, six submarines were to reach Corregidor, the first,
the Seawolfj appearing at dawn of January 30, 1942, with 27
tons of much-needed -5O-caliber and 75-mm. ammunition.
Later two more subs brought in ammunition and two others
carried food supplies — but only one of the two was able to land
its cargo.

In all only three cargo ships ever reached the Philippines.
The Coast Farmer left Brisbane in middle February and
landed its 3,000 tons of rations and a large amount of ammuni
tion at Anakan in Gingoog Bay on the north coast of Minda
nao. On March 6 the Dona Nati arrived at Cebu in the central
islands with 5,000 tons of rations and considerable ammunition
and medical supplies. Eleven days later the Anhui, a smaller
ship, docked at Cebu with supplies, and four crated P-4OS
lashed on her deck. These P-4os were to fly and to fight in the
last wild days of resistance.

Of the grand total of 10,500 tons unloaded from the three
ships, only 1,100 tons were ever to reach Corregidor or Bataan.

Even before MacArthur realized how insignificant the
amount of supplies to reach him would actually be, he dis
patched a message to Washington pleading that help be sent
him directly from the West Coast of America. His message to
236

the Chief of Staff on February 22, 1942, proved how desperate
was the need for help. One paragraph read:

Nowhere is the situation more desperate and dangerous than
here. . . . The quantities [of supplies] involved are not great
but it is imperative that they be made instantly available in the
United States and that the entire impulse and organization be
reenergized and controlled directly by you. If it is left as a sub
sidiary effort it will never be accomplished.

The last sentence of this dispatch hinted at the truth behind
the failure.

Everything that had to do with the official Washington atti
tude regarding any serious and determined aid for the Ameri
cans and their comrades in the Islands was "a subsidiary effort."

No one probably will ever be able to judge accurately what
the result would have been had the swift new American battle-
ships and the three great air carriers and their cruiser and de<
stroyer escorts in the Atlantic joined with the four carriers and
their escorts and the numerous submarines remaining in the
Pacific and sallied forth at the proper moment and under the
right conditions to challenge the Japanese fleet and clear the
way to Manila Bay.

The best naval advice available was that even the combined
fleets, fired with the unconquerable fighting spirit of the U. S.
Navy, would have been taking the greatest possible risks in
boldly facing the Japanese fleet in a battle area of Japan's own
choosing, and with the American armada 5,000 and more miles
away from its bases. Even with the advantage of having cracked
the Japanese codes, the result might have been utterly disas
trous to the Americans.

But it is probable that the top-level decision against making
any such brave effort at relief had long before been reached by
the White House, with little regard for purely naval or military
advice. The Atlantic war came first in every consideration. The
pleas and pressure by Churchill far outweighed those by Mac-
Arthur, Hitler must be defeated first, even if it were necessary
to abandon all the pledges and the honor involved in protecting
the Philippines and the doomed men trapped there. It had been

237

so resolved for almost a year before the actual shooting war be
gan. The easing of the conscience of those American leaders
responsible had long ago been accomplished. Only the public
had yet to be fooled.

On April 23, *944> Admiral Ernest J. King, who succeeded
Admiral Stark as Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet,
wrote in his First Report to the Secretary of the Navy the fol
lowing comment:

The sudden treacherous attack by Japan, which resulted in
heavy losses to us, made our unfavorable strategic position at the
outbreak of the war even worse than we had anticipated. Had
we not suffered those losses, however, our fleet could not have pro
ceeded to Manila as many people supposed and there relieved our
hard pressed forces. Such an undertaking at that time, with the
means at hand to carry it out and support it, would have been
disastrous.

During the late December days the swiftly moving drama that
centered at the two key Calumpit bridges over the Pampanga
river north of Manila absorbed the energy and the hours, day
and night, of MacArthur and his field commanders. The re
treating Filipino regiments in lower Luzon, using their com
mandeered motor transport and their rolling trains and guns,
streamed through Manila and on to the north. By sturdy delay
ing tactics they had held back the enemy columns coming up
from the south below Manila, while Wainwright's troops
blocked the Japanese advancing down the Central Valley. On
several occasions near panic seized the partially trained units
in the north, but skillful leadership kept the half-armed and
inexperienced defenders from being enveloped and the whole
plan of withdrawal from collapsing.

Only a few of the South Luzon force remained below the
twin bridges over the Pampanga river when on December 30
orders came to block an enemy breakthrough on the right
flank and above the key structures at all cost. Swampy ground
gave a certain protection, and with the self-propelled artillery
238

and a battalion of tanks that MacArthur ordered up a day or
two before, the Japanese were held.

All during the early part of the night of New Year's Eve final
truckloads of troops and supplies from the south rumbled across
the bridges and moved along the jammed highways toward the
green doorway into Bataan. Quietly the last defending bat
talion slipped back over the long steel structures. Dawn was just
breaking on the new year of 1942, and the Japanese outpost
was cautiously feeling its way forward, when Casey's dynamiters
slammed down their electric switches and the great friendly
bridges were no more.

MacArthur's split-second timing had won. But there was still
the terrifying threat that the Japanese would bomb the
crowded roads that led to Bataan and that a fresh holocaust
would scream down on the columns of men and supplies. It
seemed almost unbelievable that the prowling enemy air force,
complete masters of the sky, had not long before bombed the
Calumpit bridges and the roads from Manila, but so absorbed
had they been in destroying the last few planes MacArthur
had that they had missed this chance to cripple him irrepara
bly.

On the first day of the new year MacArthur at least had the
satisfaction of knowing that his great side-slip into Bataan
would be successful. For one reason or another, he had been
unable to concentrate all his military and medical supplies and
all the food that was available into the mountain fastness; but
he had largely kept his troops intact and there had been time
for him to construct trenches and strong points in the upper
end of the heavy wooded and mountainous area. The fact that
he was short in certain types of ammunition, particularly for
his anti-aircraft guns, was not his fault. Washington simply had
failed to supply him. This was even more seriously true in re
gard to Corregidor. It was long kept a whispered secret that
months before Pearl Harbor MacArthur had been forced to
ship the greater part of his ,5O-caliber ammunition to the Brit
ish at Singapore. Most of it, however, had been replaced.

One disturbing fact was apparent to him. Along with the
Philippine soldiers and their American comrades, who num
bered a total of 80,000, there had slipped through the Ba-

239

taan entrance 26,000 Filipino civilians. This meant that he
now would have a certain amount of local supplies used up in
feeding civilians whom he had not figured on. Long before the
agonizing end of the Bataan campaign this would prove an im
portant factor contributing to the final disaster.

The retreating troops of the South Luzon force were just be
ginning to withdraw northward through Manila when MacAr-
thur, with the approval of President Quezon, decided that he
should officially abandon Manila, declare it an open city and
thus save it from almost certain aerial destruction. On Decem
ber 24 he sent Lt. Colonel Sidney Huff, his former naval ad
visor on the staff of the military mission and now his senior
aide, to inform the president and High Commissioner Sayre
that it was time to move the official government to Corregidor.

Jean MacArthur hurriedly packed a few necessities for the
four members of her immediate household. On Christmas Eve
as she prepared to leave the penthouse with all its treasures in
books and trophies his father and mother had left the General,
she passed a tall, beautifully carved cabinet that contained the
many decorations awarded her husband during the 45 years
since the first little gold medal had been given him as a lad of
17 at the Texas Military Academy in San Antonio. Quickly she
opened one of her suitcases, discarded one or two garments
and then, spreading a bath towel on the floor, removed the
medals from their cases and wrapped them in a tight bundle.
In one of the General's suitcases were two or three photographs
of his father and mother. Nothing else in the apartment was
taken with them.

The swift twilight of the tropics had fallen over Manila
when the party gathered at the landing dock and slipped
aboard the little boat that would undertake the go-mile trip to
Corregidor. That afternoon the General had his final talk with
Admiral Hart, who had come in on a submarine for this last
conference. The two men had not seen eye to eye; there had
been many differences between them.

All communications with Washington were in the hands of
240

CA6ALUO ISLAND

Corregidor Island— last to fall in Luzon.

the Navy and its wireless station on Corregidor. Rear Admiral
Francis Rockwell was to remain in command o£ such naval
forces and installations as were not removed or destroyed.
These included the experienced 4th Regiment of Marines and
some hundreds of enlisted naval men who had been at Cavite
and would soon arrive on Corregidor. Hart left on Christ
mas Day, leaving behind 3 gunboats, 3 minesweepers, 6 motor
torpedo boats and a few odds and ends of tugs and yachts. By
January 31 all the few remaining submarines had left Philip
pine waters.

It was a bitter realization for MacArthur that even in the
narrow confines of Manila Bay and the fortress of Corregidor
and the battlefields of Bataan, he had not the authority of
a unified command. He had no formal jurisdiction whatever
over the badly needed Marines or the ground naval force. Ap
parently he was dependent upon the friendship and good will
of Admiral Rockwell. Fortunately Rockwell was younger and
far more amenable and cooperative than the critical and ex
acting Hart.

As the two men stood to say good-bye on the day before
Christmas, Admiral Hart made no mention of any change in
the chain of command regarding his naval and marine forces
still in the Philippines, As days and weeks went on and the
desperate struggle to hold Manila Bay grew in intensity, Mac-

241

Arthur felt keenly the lack of supreme command, so that he
might have the considerable naval contingent and the 4th Ma
rines directly under his orders. Finally in late January he re
monstrated with the War Department on the unreasonable sit
uation,

At once a radiogram came back to MacArthur that Admiral
Hart had been instructed on December 17 to turn over all that
remained of his naval command to him when the Admiral re
linquished personal control. General MacArthur showed the
new instructions to Admiral Rockwell, who apparently either
was completely ignorant of them or at least had made no men
tion of any knowledge of the previous orders to General Mac-
Arthur.

When Hart left on Christmas Eve he informed the com
mander of the 4th Marines, Colonel Samuel L. Howard, whose
outfit was then at Olongapo at the northern end of the Bataan
peninsula, that he was now under the tactical employment of
the Army. Colonel Howard at once reported to MacArthur and
Sutherland and was requested to take his regiment to Corregi-
dor and integrate it into the beach defenses of the fortress. On
December 29 he was officially designated as commander of all
shore defenses. Eventually Howard's total beach force num
bered more than 4,000 men, of whom 1,352 were marines.

Both the 4th Marines and the ground naval forces had their
own independent supply and medical setups on Corregidor.
Not until sometime in February, when orders came from
Washington making clear that MacArthur was in full com
mand of all forces in the Philippines, was the Navy and Ma
rine personnel subjected to the 50% reduction in rations that
was the lot of the Army people. They had their own food,
clothing and medical depots and rigidly controlled them. With
unified command, however, MacArthur pooled all the re
sources, and from then on the Navy and Marine files shared
equally with the Army men.

Never did MacArthur make an effort to try to discover who
was actually to blame for the confused situation.

[In the list of questions asked General MacArthur some
years after the war was one that read: "Upon what considera-
242

tion and on what contemporary information was the decision
to withdraw to Bataan made on December 24, 1941, based?"
MacArthur's formal reply was as follows:

My concept for the initial defense of the Philippine Islands
was to defeat the enemy on the beaches where he would be at
his weakest in any attempted amphibious landings. There were
three possible areas in Luzon for such landings — north, south and
of much lesser expanse, southeast. My forces were meager, poorly
equipped and only partially trained. I deployed the I Corps in
the north under General Wainwright, the II Corps to the south
under General Jones and local Philippine forces to the southeast.
The I Corps was unable to prevent the enemy from securing
beachheads in the north and was being gradually forced back
from one defensive line to another. No major attack had de
veloped on the south line but reports reached me about midnight
that a landing had been made in the southeast and our forces
there were unable to hold the enemy who was driving rapidly
west toward Manila. This would have split the II Corps from the
I, divided my forces and subjected them to destruction in detail.
I immediately ordered Jones to withdraw by forced marches from
the south to Bataan through Manila, and Wainwright to tempo
rarily stand in the north and at all cost to hold clear the road
nets leading to Bataan until the II Corps could take position there
and our base of supplies be moved from Manila to Mariveles and
Corregidor. When these moves had been successfully accom
plished, I evacuated Manila and declared it an open city to save
it from destruction. This decision and its brilliant implementa
tion by the field commanders involved made possible the months
of delay to the Japanese advance caused by the sieges of Bataan
and Corregidor. I have always regarded it as the not only most
vital decision of the Philippine Campaign but in its corollary
consequences one of the most decisive of the war. This view was
confirmed later from the Japanese records. Imperial Japanese
Headquarters stated, "It was a great strategic move. The Japa
nese i4th Army Headquarters . . . never planned for or ex
pected a withdrawal to Bataan. The decisive battle had been
expected in Manila. The Japanese commanders could not adjust
to the new situation/' And politically it stood as a symbol —
there was a spiritual influence exerted by the American resistance
on Bataan.]

243

While the MacArthur forces in the north of Luzon were fight
ing their great delaying action and the plan to leave doomed
Manila for the Rock had been decided on, history-making
events were occurring in Washington. On December 23 Prime
Minister Churchill and a retinue of 87 of his highest naval,
army and air advisors and war chiefs slipped into the Capital.
Churchill was the guest of the President at the White House,
and most of the officers were entertained at the British Em
bassy.

Long ago, even before Pearl Harbor, there had been general
agreement that the first and commanding job was to win the
war against Hitler. The coldest Russian winter in years had
suddenly proved to be a sturdy ally of the Soviets. A million
German soldiers already were bogged down in the heavy snows
outside the Red capital, and there was now a growing hope
that the Russians might hold on, certainly until the following
spring. But to the south another conquering German force had
already taken Odessa, and the Black Sea was no longer secure.

It took little effort apparently for the persuasive Churchill
and his visiting staff to transfer many of their own most press
ing problems of the global war, mainly including the exigen
cies of the British Empire, into the hands of the American war
leaders. It was simple for them to prove that the Japanese war
must wait, but the threat toward India must be met and
checked by way of the Middle East and Europe rather than
from the Pacific.

Sooner or later, they argued, the Japanese would overex-
tend themselves. The farther from their home bases the out
posts of their conquests extended, the more vulnerable they
would ultimately become to a final combined attack by the
victorious Allies — once Hitler was crushed. British arguments
stressed the ideas to those sitting around the long conference
table that there was no doubt that the Philippines were lost,
in all probability Malaya, Singapore and the Dutch East In
dies were doomed, and even Australia faced grave danger of
invasion. But once Europe and Britain were saved, all that had
fallen to the enemy in the Far East would be reclaimed and
244

Japan would be driven back to her tiny islands. American
power and British cunning could easily turn the trick.

Then suddenly a release in Melbourne, Australia, shook
the war planners almost off their comfortable seats in distant
Washington. The morning of December 28 the powerful Mel
bourne Herald carried an article by the Labor Prime Minister,
John Curtin.

I make it clear that Australia looks to America, free from any
pangs about our traditional links of friendship to Britain.

We know Britain's problems. We know her constant threat of
invasion. We know the dangers of dispersing strength — but we
know that Australia can go and Britain still hang on.

We are determined that Australia shall not go. We shall exert
our energy towards shaping a plan, with the United States as its
keystone, giving our country confidence and ability to hold out
until the tide of battle swings against the enemy.

We refuse to accept the dictum that the Pacific struggle is a
subordinate segment of the general conflict. The Government
regards the Pacific struggle as primarily one in which the United
States and Australia should have the fullest say in the direction
of the fighting plan.

So at last the disheartened men drawing back into Bataan
and Corregidor, the abandoned troops, sailors and airmen in
Malaya and at Singapore and through the Dutch Islands and
on below to Australia and New Zealand had a champion who
dared to oppose the complacent planners in Washington. Ob
viously these experts were too concerned with Hitler to be able
to see clearly beyond the Urals or the eastern shores of the
Arabian Sea or on to the west of Pearl Harbor. John Curtin
along with Richard Casey, the Australian Minister to the
United States, suddenly became men to be reckoned with.

Churchill and Roosevelt immediately took time out from
their European and Middle East war games to lower their
sights toward the discouraged victims of Japanese aggression.
The British Premier sent a friendly and encouraging message
to Curtin, and then at a White House press conference asserted
that, while a military alliance between Australia and the
United States was inevitable because of their geographic situa-

245

tion, he looked for no weakening of the Dominion's link with
Britain.

President Roosevelt at once dispatched a long message to
Quezon in which he said:

The people of the United States will never forget what the
people of the Philippine Islands are doing this day and will do
in days to come. I give to the people of the Philippines my
solemn pledge that their freedom will be redeemed and their
independence established and protected.

The entire resources, in men and material, of the United States
stand behind that pledge.

Working on MacArthur's staff as a member of the press section
was an energetic and patriotic Filipino newspaper editor, Carlos
Romulo. Once MacArthur was established on Corregidor, en
gineers managed to set up a small broadcasting station called
The Voice of Freedom, and daily Major Romulo poured
out inspiring messages to the troops on Bataan and the peo
ple over Luzon.

This latest pledge from the President of the United States
was broadcast more than once, but somehow its vague implica
tion of help was translated into signs and portents that had no
basis in reality. Together with a later statement by President
Roosevelt, it became the basis for a mythical assurance that
shortly aid would come by sky and sea.

Meanwhile on Bataan the long ordeal of hunger and fever,
of wounds and death, gripped the beleaguered peninsula. The
thousands of civilian refugees complicated more and more the
food situation and almost at once the garrison was put on half
rations. Later this amount was again cut, so that instead of re
ceiving even 1,500 calories daily the amount was reduced to lit
tle more than half. Somehow the supplies must be made to
hold out over a period of four to six months, by which time
relief would surely come.

Cutting north and south through the center of Bataan ran an
irregular chain of wooded mountains dividing the 25-by-i5 mile
defense area in the peninsula into east and west zones. A
246

BATAAN

The defense lines on Bataem.

corps command was established on each flank of the central
chain, and the General Headquarters reserve was placed so
that help could be hurried to either battlefield.

What had once looked so easy to the Japanese high com
mand now turned out to be almost as much a trap for the at
tackers as it was for the defenders. The jungle slopes of the
central mountains offered to the Japanese a prospect for infil
tration, but time and again those enemy units that managed to
penetrate behind the defensive lines were stopped and driven
into pockets by the Filipino and American troops. Nevertheless
the constant pressure of the better armed and trained enemy
troops, although they were heavily outnumbered, shortly began
to tell.

On December 26 Corregidor, less than three miles across
the entrance to Manila Bay from lower Bataan, received its
first heavy air attack. For two hours the General and his two
Filipino orderlies stood on the lawn of his house, refusing to
seek protection. The defiant act proved to be a great morale
builder. A few days later a little group gathered near the up
per entrance to the central tunnel that connected the upper
and lower areas of the long narrow island. The bizarre setting
seemed to give special dignity and eloquence to the words
spoken by Manuel Quez6n as he was sworn in for a second time
as President of the Philippine Commonwealth. When he had
finished his short inaugural address, he was followed by U. S.
High Commissioner Sayre, and then General MacArthur was
called upon. His voice barely reached the back row of the few
hundred spectators as he spoke slowly:

Never before in all history has there been a more solemn and
significant inauguration. An act, symbolical of democratic proc
esses, is placed against the background of a sudden, merciless war.

The thunder of death and destruction, dropped from the skies,
can be heard in the distance. Our ears almost catch the roar of
battle as our soldiers close on the firing line. The horizon is
blackened by the smoke of destructive fire. The air reverberates
to the roar of exploding bombs.

Such is the bed of birth of this new government, of this new
nation. For four hundred years the Philippines have struggled
upward towards self-government. Just at the end of its tuitionary
248

period, just on the threshold of independence, came the great
hour of decision. There was no hesitation, no vacillation, no
moment of doubt. The whole country followed its great leader
in choosing the side of freedom against the side of slavery.

We have just inaugurated him, we have just thereby confirmed
his momentous decision. Hand in hand with the United States
and the other free nations of the world, this basic and funda
mental issue will be fought through to victory. Come what may,
ultimate triumph will be its reward.

Through this its gasping agony of travail, through what
Winston Churchill called "blood and sweat and tears/' from the
grim shadow of the Valley of Death, oh merciful God, preserve
this noble race.

The month of January seemed interminable to the men on Ba-
taan and Corregidor. In the green jungles of the peninsula
malaria and tropical diseases accounted for the death and in
capacity of far more men than the fire of the Japanese. With
rations reduced more than one-half, most of the troops on the
Rock suffered the same disability from lack of food as those
on Bataan, and there were frequent and sustained bombings of
the fortress.

One of MacArthur's constant chores was to help sustain the
ailing President Quez6n. The foul air of the tunnel had
brought on a recurrence of active tuberculosis, and he grew so
weak that he could barely walk.

Back home the name of MacArthur was assuming tremen
dous popularity. Both the United States and the Allied world
were in desperate need of a symbol of courage and stubborn
fighting ability, and MacArthur filled the bill. Only in his mili
tary area were native forces doing their full share in a common
defense, and only around Manila Bay were the Japanese invad
ers being checked and actually pushed back on their heels.

Despite the fact that Marshall and his associates were too ab
sorbed in planning the destruction of Hitler to make any seri
ous attempt to answer MacArthur's call for help, there were
many reasons why the only senior American general who was
actually fighting should not be sacrificed. On February 2 a

249

radiogram signed by Marshall, but probably written by Eisen
hower, inquired about MacArthur's plans for his wife and
young son. Two days later a second wireless from Washington
announced that serious study was being made regarding the
removal of civilian officials from the Rock.

For the first time Marshall outlined the possibility of Mac-
Arthur being sent to Australia to assume command of army
forces being gathered there. The other alternative was that he
might be ordered to Mindanao, where the length of his serv
ice would depend on the success of cargo ships in running the
Japanese blockade and the efficiency of the guerilla operations.
His views were requested.

MacArthur's resentment at his suggested removal from his
troops at the moment of their greatest need for him was far
from placated by a paragraph in the Marshall cable that read:

It is understood that in case your withdrawal from immediate
leadership of your beleaguered forces is to be carried out, it will
be by direct order of the President to you.

[Mac Arthur had no way of knowing that the phrase "by di
rect order of the President to you" had been included in the
cable at the suggestion of Colonel J. Munroe Johnson, former
commander of the nfth Engineers, of the Rainbow Division
of World War I, and an old friend of the General's. The colonel
had explained to Roosevelt that he was positive that MacArthur
would not obey orders for his withdrawal if they came from the
War Department alone, but that it would take a direct com
mand from the President as Commander-in-Chief .]

A few days before the last messages were sent to MacArthur,
Quez6n on Corregidor, plagued by statements made by Gen
eral Aguinaldo in Manila and by an offer of the Japanese
Prime Minister to grant the Philippines their full independ
ence, formally transmitted a message to General MacArthur
which was, of course, intended ultimately for President Roose
velt. The questions Quez6n asked showed the desperate mood
that now gripped him:

We decided to fight by your side and we have done our best
and we are still doing as much as could be expected from us
under the circumstances. But how long are we going to be left
250

alone? Has it already been decided in Washington that the
Philippine front is of no importance as far as the final result
of the war is concerned and that, therefore, no help can be ex
pected here in the immediate future, or at least before the power
of resistance is exhausted? If so, I want to know because I have
my own responsibility to my countrymen whom, as President of
the Commonwealth, I have led into a complete war effort. . . .
It seems that Washington does not fully realize our situation
nor the feelings which the apparent neglect of our safety and
welfare have engendered in the hearts of our people here. . . .

The Roosevelt reply could hardly have deceived even the
sick and distressed Quez6n. One portion read:

Although I cannot at this time state the day that help will
arrive in the Philippines, I can assure you that every vessel avail
able is bearing to the Southwest Pacific the strength that will
eventually crush the enemy and liberate your native land. . . .

, A week went by and then in complete frustration Quez6n
evolved a fantastic plan of action that would have been com
pletely foreign to him in anything bordering on normal times.
On February 8 he called his Cabinet together on the Rock and
read them a long dispatch that he contemplated sending the
President of the United States through General MacArthur.
Then he talked the matter over with High Commissioner
Sayre and finally with the General. The result was that a ra
diogram was sent to the President, with attending remarks by
both the High Commissioner and General MacArthur.

Quez6n's proposal was no less than that the Philippines be
immediately granted full independence by the United States,
and that they then be neutralized by a formal agreement be
tween Japan and the United States. All Filipino troops would
be disbanded, and all fighting on the Islands would end.

The accompanying report of High Commissioner Sayre ap
proved the proposal, "if the premise of President Quezon is
correct that American help cannot or will not arrive here in
time to be availing."

In forwarding the two messages General MacArthur added
his own interpretation:

251

Since I have no air or sea protection you must be prepared
at any time to figure on the complete destruction of this com
mand. You must determine whether the mission o£ delay would
be better furthered by the temporizing plan of Quezon's or by
my continued battle effort. The temper of the Filipinos is one
of almost violent resentment against the United States. Every
one of them expected help and when it was not forthcoming
they believe they have been betrayed in favor of others. ... So
far as the military angle is concerned, the problem presents itself
as to whether the plan of President Quezon might offer the best
possible solution of what is about to be a disastrous debacle. It
would not affect the ultimate situation in the Philippines, for
that would be determined by the results in other theatres. If the
Japanese Government rejects President Quez6n's proposition it
would psychologically strengthen our hold because of their Prime
Minister's statement offering independence. If it accepts it, we
lose no military advantage because we would still secure at least
equal delay. Please instruct me.

It was a desperate gamble that MacArthur was taking. He
was certain that only some such shock as the messages from
Quezon, Sayre and himself could shake the administration out
of its mood of abandonment. His innate realism made clear to
him the impracticability of the whole scheme, but he was will
ing to pay the cost of this final attempt to awaken Washington
and possibly gain even slight help.

Certainly the President, Secretary of War Stimson and Chief
of Staff Marshall were genuinely disturbed by the proposal.
All three understood the delicacy of the situation, and they
could not help but know the anguish and despair of the ex
hausted leaders on Corregidor and Bataan. Many hours o£
work went into President Roosevelt's cautious answer to Mac-
Arthur:

My reply must emphatically deny the possibility of this Gov
ernment's agreement to the political aspects of President Quez6n's
proposal. I authorize you to arrange for the capitulation of the
Filipino elements of the defending forces, when and if in your
opinion that course appears necessary and always having in mind
that the Filipino troops are in the service of the United States.
Details of all necessary arrangements will be left in your hands,
including plans for segregation of forces and the withdrawal, if
252

your judgment so dictates, of American elements to Fort Mills
[Corregidor]. The timing also will be left to you.

American forces will continue to keep our flag flying in the
Philippines so long as there remains any possibility of resistance.
I have made these decisions in complete understanding of your
military estimate that accompanied President Quez6n*s message
to me. The duty and the necessity of resisting Japanese aggres
sion to the last transcends in importance any other obligation
now facing us in the Philippines. . . .

I therefore give you this most difficult mission in full under
standing of the desperate nature to which you may shortly be
reduced. The service that you and the American members of your
command can render to your country in the titanic struggle now
developing is beyond all possibility of appraisement. . . .

There then followed the suggestion that Mrs. Sayre and the
MacArthur family be given the privilege of accompanying
Quez6n's official party to Australia by submarine and then on
to the United States. Quezon tried to soften the blow to Mac-
Arthur's pride, but no words could ease his sense of humiliation.
Then Quezon turned to the subject of Jean and Arthur accom
panying him and his family, i£ and when they left.

The General sought Jean, and quietly they talked it over.
The military situation was rapidly deteriorating, and there
might not be another such favorable chance of escape for the
two he loved so deeply. Jean must make the decision herself.

In a very real way it was the final test, the culmination of the
oddly beautiful love story of this lonely man and this gracious
and spirited woman, 20 years his junior. She must consider
the little boy who in a few weeks would be 4 years old.

"We have drunk from the same cup," she finally said. "We
three shall stay together."

The General now reported back to the Filipino President,
his own dear and loyal friend. When he had heard the deci
sion, Quezon slowly shook his head. He was almost speechless
from the impact of MacArthur's words.

"You are signing their death warrant, General," he whis
pered. But he sensed that this was neither the time nor the place
for argument.

MacArthur wrote out his joint answer to Marshall's personal

252

inquiry of four days before and to this latest suggestion that
his family leave. They would remain on Corregidor with him
and "share the fate of the garrison." He would fight to destruc
tion on Bataan, and then do the same on Corregidor.

"I have not the slightest intention in the world of surrender
ing or capitulating the Filipino forces of my command/' he
continued. "There has never been the slightest wavering
among my troops.'*

The following day Marshall answered that he was concerned
over the sentence that read that he and his family would
"share the fate of the garrison." There was even a hint that
there might be another assignment that would necessitate his
being separated from his family under increased peril and
great embarrassment.

In the same message was included an inquiry about anti-air
craft ammunition, and when MacArthur replied on February
15, he answered this specific inquiry but made no mention of
the personal part of the communication.

It was a day of anxiety on the Rock and in the wooded
hills of Bataan. On this day of February 15 the "impregna
ble" fortress of Singapore fell, and now the Japanese held Ma
laya and most of Borneo and the Celebes. The way was open to
Sumatra and Java, and on to the south lay the prize of Aus
tralia.

Boldly MacArthur cabled Washington that there was still a
chance for an attack on the extended Japanese sea lines of com
munication. The desperate situation still could be reversed if
the Navy, with its powerful carrier force, was willing to take
the risk.

At the moment MacArthur was not aware of the growing
magic of his name. As early as February 5 the House of Repre
sentatives rang with speeches in his praise.

The professional politicians around the White House took
note. With the Presidential elections still two and a half years
away could it be that the far-sighted Republicans were groom
ing the new military hero as a candidate?

MacArthur, totally unaware of these happenings, kept a tight
rein on the desperate fighting on Bataan. Returning from an
inspection that took him to the forward command posts, he
254

found President Quez6n worried over MacArthur 's safety. He
laughed off the President's words of caution and announced
that he proposed soon to set up his own advance headquarters
on Bataan.

Quezon was shocked. He earnestly cautioned MacArthur
that should anything happen to him the whole defense would
immediately collapse. The morale of the command, particu
larly of the Filipino troops, depended upon his well-being. Even
the General, the President insisted, could not realize the depth
of the devotion felt for him by the officers and soldiers of the
Philippine Army. No longer did they look to America or even
to President Roosevelt to save them and their country. It was
to MacArthur alone that they turned.

MacArthur did his best to relieve the ailing leader of his
concern, insisting in a light vein that the Japanese had not yet
made the bullet with his name on it. But Quezon was not to
be dissuaded. MacArthur's serious response that at times even
the supreme commander must bolster morale by his own per
sonal display of courage failed to win over the Filipino leader.
Largely as a result of this pressure MacArthur made no more
trips to Bataan, although its wooded areas were less open to
accurate heavy bombing than the small and exposed Rock.
As a result of this deference to the wishes of the weak and
failing Quez6n, MacArthur was subjected to endless attacks on
his courage, some even by officers and men in sister services.
The high point in calumny was reached in the coining of the
bitter phrase "Dug-out Doug/* so often to be repeated in Wash
ington by the anti-MacArthur groups.

At the time and during the years to follow it has been diffi
cult for his countrymen to understand the peculiar hold that
MacArthur had not only on the people of the Philippines but
on all the native races of Asia and the Western Pacific. Pos
sibly it had to do with his inherent sympathy for their aspira
tions toward new national and social freedoms and for their
revolt against the ancient imperialism of their former over
lords. Such leaders as Quezon and Romulo were to give it ex
pression in these perilous days of the invasion, and it was their
confidence and urgings that inspired him to use his famous
statement, "I shall return!"

255

The Quezon family and several high officials of his govern
ment left Corregidor by submarine late on the night of Feb
ruary 20. For several days there had been conferences going
on in Washington between Richard Casey, the Australian
Minister, and the British, Dutch and U. S. officials, with
the result that the United States finally agreed to accept the
major responsibility for the eastern half of the American-
British-Dutch-Chinese areas. This included in particular the
Dutch East Indies, Australia and her island approaches and, of
course, the Philippines. The western portion of the vast area
would still remain the responsibility of the British.

On February 21 an important Cabinet meeting was held in
Canberra, Australia, at which it was decided to ask formally
that General MacArthur be ordered to Australia at once and be
given command of the area newly assigned to the United
States. The same day General Marshall radioed MacArthur
that President Roosevelt was considering the proposition of or
dering him to Mindanao, where a base of operations for a relief
force for Luzon might be set up if a successful allied air and
naval counterattack from the Dutch East Indies materialized.
Marshall's wire continued:

The foregone considerations underlie the tentative decision
of the President, but we are not sufficiently informed as to the
situation and circumstances to be certain that the proposal meets
the actual situation.

Prime Minister Curtin's spectacular demand for MacArthur
had now reached the White House. Without waiting for Mac-
Arthur's answer to Marshall's message of the previous day, the
President sent a personal radio message ordering him to pro
ceed to Mindanao as quickly as possible, and as soon as he had
stabilized defenses there, to go on to Australia.

It was the final blow that MacArthur's realism had felt
must come sooner or later. He was now summarily ordered to
leave his comrades in arms for a far more important assign
ment. He was not to be permitted the honor of sharing their
fate.

He walked from his desk in the tunnel and slowly made his
256

way to the little house where Jean and Arthur stayed between
bombing raids.

He felt physically exhausted from the helplessness of his sit
uation. For the first time in his life it seemed that he must
disobey a formal order, even though it be from the President of
the United States. He would demand the right to stay with his
troops and share their fate.

His quiet determination grew as he laid bare his thoughts to
Jean. She had no word of admonition or advice. She could only
steel his resolve.

Finally he sent his orderly for Dick Sutherland, his chief of
staff.

[Some years later MacArthur described (to the author)
the tragic decision he had to make: "I fully expected to be
killed. I would never have surrendered. If necessary I would
have sought the end in some final charge/' He hesitated be
fore he spoke again: "I suppose the law of averages was against
my lasting much longer under any circumstances. I would prob
ably have been killed in a bombing raid or by artillery fire.
. . . And Jean, and the boy might have been destroyed in some
final general debacle/']

He showed Sutherland the decoded message from the Presi
dent and bluntly explained that he could not leave his men.
He started to write out his refusal to obey the order from his
Commander-in-Chief.

But the impossibility of any such action was made clear to
him. Had he not been assured that a great American force was
rapidly being built up in Australia — a concentration of planes,
tanks, ships and men? With this he could hurriedly mount a
rescue command and return to the Islands. And there was the
immediate alternative that he might ask for a postponement of
his departure from Corregidor.

He delayed his final decision for two days. When it was evi
dent that there was no other way out, he sent the President a
reserved message of acceptance. He insisted that the failure to
support the Philippines properly had created the difficult situa
tion which he had been able to meet only because of the very
special confidence the Filipino people and Army had in him.
He explained frankly that his sudden departure might result

257

in the collapse of the Filipino lines, and he asked that his de
parture be delayed until the psychological moment.

"Please be guided by me in this matter," he concluded. "I
know the situation here in the Philippines and unless the right
moment is chosen for the delicate operation a sudden collapse
might result. . . . These people are depending upon me now;
any idea that might develop in their minds that I was being
withdrawn for any other reason than to bring them immediate
relief could not be explained."

Two days later he received a message bearing Marshall's
name: "Your No. 358 has been carefully considered by the
President. He has directed that full decision as to timing of
your departure and details of method be left in your hands."

MacArthur radioed that the arrangements were satisfactory.
For some reason not understood at the time, Japanese pressure
on the battle lines in Bataan had lessened, and probing efforts
by American and Filipino troops had disclosed that portions of
a crack division of Japanese troops had been withdrawn from
the Islands, and that the enemy line at the moment was only
thinly held. This might mean that the enemy was pulling back
in preparation for a major attack. But if such an attack did not
materialize, MacArthur radioed that "we may be approaching
the stalemate of positional warfare."

[After the war was over the facts came out: The enemy was
re-grouping his forces and waiting for siege guns to arrive
from the Hong Kong area. During this time of temporizing,
MacArthur even considered the possibility of a break-through
from Bataan to the Zambales mountains of western Luzon,
where his liberated forces might continue an intensive guerilla
operation.]

Ten days after the message ordering his withdrawal, Mar
shall jogged him with the word that conditions in Australia
made urgent his early arrival there. In a previous radio he had
been informed that the British-American Combined Chiefs of
Staff had ordered Field Marshall Wavell to dissolve his staff
and turn the command of operations over to the Netherlands
authorities. But MacArthur would not be under this jurisdic
tion, and he was to continue to communicate directly with the
War Department.
258

[A sidelight of some importance appeared a number of
years later when the forceful Patrick J. Hurley told of a singu
lar talk he had had with Field Marshall Wavell shortly before
MacArthur's relief and during the most desperate days of the
Java campaign. The fine old British soldier explained that for
some time he had been watching MacArthur in the newsreels
and releases and studying his background and record. "He is a
superb battle commander, but I think he demands personal
publicity/' Wavell went on. "If he were theatre commander, I
fear he might wake up some morning and find he had lost one
of his armies." Hurley at once made an elaborate defense of
MacArthur, explaining how it was necessary for an American
commander to take careful stock of the public's reactions to
him and his actions. "At heart MacArthur is most conserva
tive/' Hurley remarked. "He is really a Highland Scotsman
and watches every possible enemy. He is experienced and can
be completely trusted in every emergency." The following
morning Wavell, himself a Scots Highlander, read to Gen
eral Hurley a cable he was dispatching to Churchill, rec
ommending MacArthur in the highest terms as a theatre
commander. ... It is interesting to note that in May of this
same year of 1942, Chief of Staff Marshall's orders sending
Hurley to Egypt and then to Russia contained the definite or
der that he was not to see Field Marshall Wavell again.]

On March 10 MacArthur felt that the situation on Bataan
would permit him to leave, and he so cabled Washington. Two
evenings later he and a party of 20 boarded four swift PT
boats. A submarine of the same type that had carried the
Quezon and Sayre parties was available, but MacArthur in
sisted on going out by what seemed to many the more precar
ious way.

A week before his departure from Corregidor MacArthur began
formulating his final plans for the forces and command setup
he would leave behind him. First, he split the Visayan-Minda-
nao force, comprising all the troops on the islands south of
Luzon, into two commands: Brigadier General Wm. F. Sharp,

259

previously in full command, would now have only the great
island of Mindanao, which MacArthur planned to use as a base
for the counterattack he hoped to make from Australia; the
middle islands of the Visayan group would fall to Brigadier
General Bradford G. Chynoweth, now at Cebu. An independent
force called Harbor Defense, comprising Corregidor and the
three small island forts in Manila Bay, would be under Briga
dier General George F. Moore. Major General Wainwright, II
Corps commander on Bataan, would be relieved of his corps
and would lead the Luzon Force, comprising both corps on
Bataan and all troops scattered over Luzon.

The over-all command of the whole Philippine forces would
remain under control of the United States Army Forces Far
East, which would still function on Corregidor, with promoted
Brigadier General Lewis C. Beebe in direct charge as Deputy
Chief of Staff of USAFFE. Thus MacArthur, although 3,000
miles away in Australia, would still be in supreme command of
the Philippines through his deputy chief of staff on Corregi
dor. Apparently the plan was not explained to General Mar
shall, in Washington, for almost immediately after MacArthur
had arrived in Australia Wainwright was promoted to the
grade of lieutenant general and dispatches began to arrive
from Washington addressed to the Commanding General of
Philippine Forces and obviously intended for him. General
Beebe, ordered by MacArthur to keep command as deputy
chief of staff, was confused and shortly a most embarrassing
situation arose as to who was actually in command — Wain
wright or MacArthur's deputy chief of staff. So apparently
Marshall had moved without consulting MacArthur, and Mac-
Arttair, in turn, had neglected to inform Marshall of the new
chain of command, which was well within his province to
make.

It is obvious that MacArthur had his own reasons for ar
ranging the separate commands as he did; eventual defeat
was only a matter of time, and it may well be that he real
ized that as long as he held tight to the actual over-all com
mand the Japanese could force no single American commander
to order the surrender of all the American-Philippine forces
scattered throughout the many islands. MacArthur was partic-
260

ularly interested in holding as much as he could in Mindanao
(even though it be only jungle and mountain hide-outs) in the
hope he would be able to use the island as a staging area for
some future rescue force.

On the other hand, the split command was distasteful to
Wainwright, who at the start had no authority over Corregidor
and the supply base there. But the eventual cost of the single
command, authorized by Marshall and the President, became
painfully evident when Wainwright was forced to surrender all
his scattered commands.

Occupied and harassed as MacArthur was during his first
weeks in Australia, his anguish regarding the plight of his com
rades on Bataan apparently never left his mind. Sometime be
fore he left Corregidor he had evolved a plan for some possible
future action conceived around the idea of a break-out from
Bataan. It was based on the desperate chance that he might be
able to fight his way to the Japanese base at Olongapo, in the
northwest corner of the Bataan peninsula, capture supplies
there and then dissolve into the Zambales mountains to carry
on a determined guerilla warfare. In a message he sent to Gen
eral Marshall on April i, he said that he had not explained
this to Wainwright for fear it might tend to influence his de
cisions.

In this same message to the Chief of Staff in Washington
MacArthur made a suggestion that showed clearly the despera
tion of his thinking, and the simple courage that gripped him.
He had urged Wainwright never to surrender but to fight on
until death. He now cabled that he was ready to fly back to Ba
taan and personally lead this last forlorn hope. In his own
words, he would "rejoin this command temporarily and take
charge of this movement."

Marshall's reply was noncommittal. But to MacArthur there
was an urgency that was inspired by a deep sense of duty
and honor that called for the right of a commander who ad
vised death rather than surrender to share in the fate of his
men. From the far-removed safety of Washington — under quiet
suggestion from London to abandon the Philippines and con
centrate everything on the victory over Hitler — this passionate
concern of MacArthur's for the trapped men around Manila

261

Bay and his willingness to die with them must have seemed
rather unrealistic and bizarre.

The collapse of the starved, beaten and demoralized troops
on Bataan came exactly 29 days after MacArthur left Corregi-
dor. On April 7 Major General Edward J. King, commander
on Bataan, sent his chief of staff to Wainwright with the painful
news that his collapse was imminent. He was ordered to counter
attack. Two days later the brave and able King, exhausted and
overrun, had the moral courage to disobey his oral orders from
Wainwright and to accept the full responsibility of asking the
Japanese for surrender terms. The Jap conquerors demanded
that King surrender Corregidor, as well as Bataan, which, of
course, he had no authority to do.

MacArthur was fully aware of the impending disaster, but
the actual news of the collapse came to him as a shock. He im
mediately wrote out in pencil a brief message to be radioed in
the clear to Wainwright, which showed the depth of his emo
tion:

The Bataan Force went out as it would have wished, fighting
to the end its flickering forlorn hope. No army has ever done
so much with so little, and nothing became it more than its last
hour of trial and agony. To the weeping mothers of its dead, I
can only say that the sacrifice and halo of Jesus of Nazareth has
descended upon their sons, and that God will take them unto
Himself.

MacArthur knew that only a few short weeks now separated
Corregidor from its doom. And he was conscious, too, of the
unspeakable ordeal that these ten thousand men and the hand
ful of brave women were going through. There was bitterness
in his heart when he heard that the Japanese had placed heavy
bombardment artillery in the immediate vicinity of the hospi
tal area in lower Bataan and were shelling the Rock, night and
day, from this sanctuary.

Wainwright resisted with all the courage and determination
of a fine old soldier, but the noose had been pulled tight, and
finally there was nothing he could do but surrender. He tried
desperately to gain the best possible terms, but he was help
less. On May 6 he was forced to bend before complete enemy
262

dictation. Immediately before he entered into the capitulation
he radioed General Sharp on Mindanao that Sharp was no
longer under his (Wainwright's) orders and was now exclusively
under MacArthur's command.

When Wainwright told General Homma that he had no au
thority over any troops outside Luzon, the surrender negotia
tions were broken oft. The severest pressure was now brought
on the American commander, and finally in utter desperation
he agreed to complete surrender of the Rock and to order all
commanders everywhere to give up. A rumor was spread that if
any resistance took place anywhere in the Islands, the 10,000
troops on Corregidor would be destroyed.

When word of the disaster arrived in Australia, MacArthur
wrote out his final comment on the courage and resistance of
the men who had held the Rock and the entrance to Manila
Bay inviolate for five months lacking only a day. The bitter
memories and heartaches would never leave him.

Corregidor needs no comment from me. It has sounded its
own story at the mouth of its guns. It has scrolled its own epitaph
on enemy tablets. But through the bloody haze of its last re
verberating shot, I shall always seem to see a vision of grim,
gaunt, ghastly men, still unafraid.

10

And now came one of those strange and almost unaccountable
bits of history that often touch war with moments of high
drama. Wainwright, trapped and helpless, had been under
standably intimidated into broadcasting the order directing all
his subordinate commanders, everywhere in the archipelago,
to surrender immediately. Scattered throughout all the larger
islands were considerable forces of Filipino and American
troops and guerillas, who had plenty of munitions cached in
mountain hide-outs and had every intention of fighting on.
With Wainwright' s broadcast at midnight on May 7, informing
all officers to surrender at once, Major General Wm. F. Sharp,
in Mindanao, wirelessed MacArthur for instructions. MacAr
thur, in Australia, answered that Wainwright's order had no
validity and ordered Sharp to break up his forces into small

263

guerilla groups and take to the hills. He added, however, "You
have full authority to make any decision that may be required
in this emergency."

General Sharp broke up his command, but on May 9 Colo
nel Traywick, Wainwright's representative, arrived by plane
with a Japanese officer. Traywick carried a letter from Wain-
wright explaining the circumstances. With it went the threat
that if Sharp's entire force did not capitulate at once, the Japs
might open fire on the helpless Corregidor garrison. A second
rumor had it that for every day of delay ten American officers
on Corregidor would be shot.

General Sharp decided that he had no other course but to
radio all commanders in the Mindanao-Visayan group to sur
render. One officer, Brigadier General Bradford G. Chynoweth,
commander of Cebu, definitely refused and made his plans
to transfer his command to Leyte, where he would organize a
large guerilla band. He was clearly under the impression that
only MacArthur could order a general surrender of all the
forces in the Philippines, and he was prepared to fight on. May
15, an envoy arrived from Sharp, and at the same time there
came an announcement, apparently from Stateside, that Mac-
Arthur was no longer "in communication" with the Phil
ippines. The following day the gallant Chynoweth had to
march his men down from the hills.

On nearby Panay, where there was a force of some 7,000
Philippine and American troops, Colonel Ralph W. Christie,
commanding officer, bluntly questioned General Sharp's latest
orders. In desperation he wirelessed that without MacArthur's
orders he felt his surrender might be treason. He asked Sharp
simply to give him a free hand and stated: "I strongly urge
you to have the approval of the War Department through
MacArthur/' Hard-pressed Sharp wirelessed back: "No further
comments from you are desired. Acknowledge this message and
state action taken at once."

And so it was that the bravest of the brave were forced to
surrender under the rumored threat of ghastly reprisals on
Corregidor. Had General Marshall permitted MacArthur to
continue to handle the whole Philippine situation from his
command post in Australia and not interfere with MacAr-
264

thur's arrangements, it is possible that guerilla resistance in the
central and lower islands would have long continued. It would
have taken thousands of Japanese troops, needed elsewhere, to
clean out the organized forces that the American officers, scat
tered throughout the Islands, were forced to surrender at this
time.

The real difficulty lay in Marshall's early wireless that the
full authority and command of the Islands rested in Wain-
wright alone. This had been picked up by the Japanese, and
when Wainwright tried to deny to the enemy that he had au
thority to order the scattered units to the south to surrender,
he was confronted with orders from Marshall.

Wainwright had done his best, and he was in no way to
blame for the unfortunate circumstances in which Marshall's
hurried action had placed him. Had there been no interference
from Washington, there would at least have been validity to
Wainwright's contention that he had no authority to order gen
eral surrender throughout the Islands. If MacArthur erred at
all, it was only in his failure to notify Washington of his new
setup in the chain of command. Certainly it was MacArthur's
right and duty to make such dispositions as he chose, because
the Philippines were still completely under his over-all com
mand.

The Japanese conquerors were so bitter and angry at their
failure to overrun Luzon and Corregidor in the two months
that had been allotted them that they were prepared to go to
the cruelest possible ends to force the surrender of all organ
ized resistance in the Islands.

So deadly would this threat of reprisal against the helpless
Corregidor garrison have been, that it is to be seriously
doubted if the scattered American commanders could have
long stood against the terrible pressure. Most of them would
have been forced to give way before some appalling ultima
tum, involving the lives of their comrades on the Rock. Even
if Wainwright's authority had not been increased, and MacAr
thur, now in Australia, had continued to hold actual command,
the grim reality of the Japanese threats might still have suc
ceeded in bringing about surrender.

MacArthur himself might have been forced to adopt with

265

, all the scattered American commanders the same course that
he followed in his cabled instructions to General Sharp on
Mindanao: "You have full authority to make any decision that
may be required in this emergency/' Thus the net result might
have been the same — ultimate surrender of the various units
under the threat of deadly reprisals.

In MacArthur's eyes the fundamental error had been made
months and even years before war came, when there had been
ample time to build up an adequate defense in the Islands —
had the will been there, and had British and later the Russian
influence been less powerful.

11

During the days immediately before MacArthur had boarded
his PT boat he had been concerned with the problem of the
make-up of the personnel of the party to accompany him to
Australia. He hesitated to strip his experienced USAFFE staff on
Corregidor, but he knew that immediately on his arrival in
Australia he would have urgent need of the men who had long
been working closely with him. He studied the list made out
by his chief of staff, and finally settled on 18 service men: 16
other officers, his sergeant secretary, and himself.

Besides Chief of Staff Sutherland and his deputy, Brigadier
General Richard Marshall, the list included Admiral Rockwell
and Captain H. G. Ray of the Navy; Brigadier Generals
Spencer B. Akin, William F. Marquat, Hugh J. Casey and Har
old H. George; Colonels Charles A. Willoughby and Charles
P. Stivers; Lt. Colonels Sidney L. Huff, L. A. Diller, Francis H.
Wilson and Joe R. Sherr; Major Charles H. Morehouse, Cap
tain Joseph McMicking and Master Sergeant Paul P. Rogers.
They were all indispensable to MacArthur in forming his
new staff.

The MacArthur detractors found a new opportunity for re
newing their criticism of the General. There now was whis
pered a particularly vicious story that had not the slightest
basis of fact: By word of mouth and by letter and print the
story was spread that desperately ill American nurses were de-
266

nied transportation from Bataan while the furniture and even
the piano from the General's apartment atop the Manila Hotel
were loaded in the four PT boats that made the trip to Min
danao, and then transferred to planes carrying the little party
to Australia.

The actual fact was quite different: Each of the 21 people
taken off the Rock, including the General and the thrve mem
bers of his immediate family, was permitted a single suitcase.
There was no other luggage of any kind.

A second endlessly recurring charge centered on the fact
that the Cantonese nurse, Ah Cheu, was taken out in prefer
ence to some American. Ever since young Arthur was a few
days old this amah had been an intimate member of the fam
ily. If and when Corregidor finally succumbed, it was almost
certain that this Chinese woman would be singled out for spe
cial torture and probable death. The Far Eastern Commander
took it for granted that it remained his unquestioned and sole
prerogative to make his own decision regarding this devoted
and adopted member of his family.

The continued smears and bitter personal digs that revolved
around this perilous voyage were not allowed to die out com
pletely. Never once did the General bother to attempt to an
swer them or to justify his actions.

During the dangerous sea and air trip the General's spirits
were constantly revived by the thought that once he reached
his new assignment he would find a sufficient force awaiting
him so that he could immediately organize a great relief expe
dition for the Philippines. If he was fortunate enough to sur
vive the coming ordeal of the hazardous voyage to Australia,
Colonel Carlos Romulo on Corregidor was to announce over
the Voice of Freedom radio MacArthur's solemn pledge, "I
shall return!"

MacArthur's word alone still carried weight and promise.
The Filipino soldiers and civilians believed in him. "Even 'We
shall return r would have lacked the magic that rested in the
simple pledge 'I shall return!' " Romulo explained some years
later.

Rarely did the General refer to the long and dangerous jour
ney that started from the Rock on March 11. The subsequent

267

fate of Corregidor and Bataan weighed too heavily on his
heart.

To an old friend [the author] staying at his headquarters al
most two years later, he relived the great adventure. So sim
ple were his words and so accurate the sequence he unfolded,
that it is repeated here from an account written at the time for
a book called MacArthur and the War Against Japan, pub
lished by Charles Scribner's Sons:

It was seven fifteen when the General walked across his porch
to where his wife was seated, "Jean>" he said gently, "it is time
to mount up." Quietly they went down to the South Dock where
Bulkeley waited with his PT-41. Shelling had been intermittent
all day in the dock area. They boarded the vessel — all but the
General. He had stopped and turned to bid Corregidor his fare
well.

The men on the dock stared at the lone motionless figure they
knew so well. In his war-worn clothes he loomed gaunt and for
lorn. His eyes roved the desperate scene before him in all its
naked bleakness. Almost every building, every shed, every tree
had been burned and blasted. The great fires that had raged had
left their black streaks from one end of the Rock to the other.
Great crevasses were torn everywhere. Corregidor looked like a
tortured body that had been ripped and gouged and twisted into
something no longer human.

His eyes seemed to search through the broken, shattered ruins
up to the top where he could still catch the gleam of the barrels
of the big guns. Up there in command of the Top Side was his
classmate, Paul Bunker. Forty years ago they had been associated
together on one of West Point's most famous football teams —
Bunker, the star, a double All-American — MacArthur in the more
humble role of team manager!

It was just dusk and the faint night breeze was beginning to
ripple the waters. A strange silence had fallen as though death
were passing by. Even the firing had ceased.

Slowly the General raised his cap — that famous cap. Even
through his tan he looked white and ashen, and there was the
suspicion of a twitch at the muscles of his mouth. One could
have heard a pin drop.

He looked around as he stepped aboard. Every man on the
dock stood bareheaded. They all knew he had not more than one
chance in ten.
266

Then came the General's quiet voice — "Cast off, Buck."

At 8:30 the four boats rendezvoused at the opening to the
mine field. They crept through, led by a navy mine layer. At
9:15 they opened up the throttles and roared away.

Very shortly they began to pick up Japanese signal fires. All
along the coast the enemy had established a system of signalling
by fire that might have been old Indian signals. The warning
signals could now clearly be seen, but the sound of the PT
engines was like the sound of bombers, and the watchers mis
took it.

The PT boats ran in a diamond formation, and the orders were
to attack anything that blocked the way. Each of the boats car
ried torpedoes and .5o-caliber machine guns, and the General
felt they could break through any ordinary blockading line. If
they were attacked from the air they were to hold together, put
up a curtain of fire, and depend on their high speed maneuver
ability.

Off to the left they soon made out Japanese blockading ships.
Immediately they changed course to pass to the west and north.
All night long similar alarms took place, but with great skill
and good luck the Japanese craft were by-passed. In the diamond
pattern Bulkeley's boat led off. Admiral Rockwell in the fourth
boat closed up the rear.

The seas became increasingly heavy, and the little boats
pounded and rolled. It was difficult to hold formation, and about
3:30 in the morning, the pattern was broken despite every effort
to hold it. They had planned to rendezvous that morning at a
deserted island. When they lost formation, the lead boat tried
for several hours to collect the other boats, but was unsuccessful.
When day broke it headed for another deserted island, three sail
ing hours north of the rendezvous. Here they hoped to find cover
to hide during the day.

In a distant cove they made out a small craft which was iden
tified as one of their own ships. But those aboard failed to
recognize the General's boat and prepared for conflict, dumping
their spare gas drums and manning their guns. At the point of
opening fire General Akin fortunately identified MacArthur's
PT-boat and shouted "Hold fire!" His keen eyesight prevented
a horrible catastrophe.

They remained in the cove until about 2:30 in the afternoon,
anxiously scanning the skies for the enemy's inevitable searching
planes. To be spotted would be to be lost. Little Arthur was

269

prostrated and was running a high fever. The amah was deathly
sick. The General and his wife were good sailors and had weath
ered it well. The General ordered the vessel to try to make the
original rendezvous point, a wild and uninhabited island.

The seas were running high and dangerous. The second boat
had dumped its spare drums when it had mistaken MacArthur's
craft for an enemy ship and its gas was running low. They found
Admiral Rockwell at the rendezvous, and took on the passengers
from the boat that was out of running for lack of fuel. Around
6:30, they set out to cross the Mindanao Sea for Cagayan. Rock
well's boat led and Buck's followed. The fourth boat arrived at
the rendezvous about one hour after they left, and immediately
followed them into the Mindanao Sea alone.

Before darkness closed in they ran into enemy destroyers, but
these apparently failed to pick them up, for they slipped by them.
They were getting all they could out of the old engines now. The
Mindanao Sea was choppy and they were taking heavy punish
ment. It was like being in a cement mixer, which buffeted them
from one side to the other. The next day most of the passengers
were black and blue from head to foot

It had just turned daybreak when they arrived at Cagayan in
north central Mindanao. The General turned to Buck and his
officers and men of the two boats. "It was done In true naval
style/' he gratefully pronounced. "I take great honor in award
ing the boats' crews the Silver Star for gallantry and fortitude
hi the face of heavy odds/'

General Sharp met them at the dock. He was General Mac-
Arthur's 'Commander in Mindanao and had a force of about
25,000 men. In the Visayas, General Chynoweth had about so,«
ooo men. These were units of the Philippine Army in those
sectors which had been mobilized when the war broke. It had
been General MacArthur's plan to use these troops in guerilla
warfare, if the defense of Bataan failed.

Four bombers had been ordered from Australia to meet the
party. Two failed to arrive and the third crashed in the Bay.
The fourth was so old and dilapidated that General .Sharp had
started it back to Australia without passengers before Mac-
Arthur's arrived.

Three replacement planes were at once started from. Australia
and two of them finally arrived. In the meantime the Japanese
had word that the MacArthur staff had reached Mindanao and

The planes arrived just before midnight, and took off shortly
afterwards. They were flying over enemy-held country patrolled
by enemy planes, but under cover of the night they managed to
evade all contacts. At 9 that morning they arrived at Batchelor
Field, forty miles south of Port Darwin. "It was close/' said the
General on landing: "but that's the way it is in war. You win
or lose, live or die — and the difference is just an eyelash."

But they still faced danger. The Japanese evidently had spotted
the two planes, for in less than three hours after the Forts had
landed on Batchelor Field, a heavy air attack was launched. The
General's party had left for Alice Springs by a scant ten minutes
when the dive bombers and fighters roared in. But the priceless
quarry was gone.

12

On March 17, when his plane from Mindanao came down at
Batchelor Field near Darwin in Northern Australia, MacAr-
thur turned to an American officer standing by and asked how
many American troops were now in Australia.

The officer was a little dumbfounded at the question. "As
far as I know, sir, there are very few troops here/' he an
swered.

MacArthur could not believe the words. He spoke in an
aside to his chief of staff, Dick Sutherland: "Surely he is
wrong."

Following a three-hour flight to Alice Springs, there came a
long rail trip across the endless Australian desert. Late on the
afternoon of the third day he reached the junction of the wide-
gauge above Adelaide and found a luxurious private car await
ing. On it was Dick Marshall, his deputy chief of staff, who
had been dispatched by air to Melbourne ahead of the rest
of the party in order to find the true state of affairs.

To the General's first question Marshall gravely shook his
head. Instead of a great American troop concentration there
was practically nothing with which to build a relief force; no
infantry or tanks; only two National Guard Coast Artillery an
ti-aircraft regiments, a regiment or two of field artillery and
two regiments of Engineers and some scattered Air Corps per
sonnel, with 250 planes in various states of efficiency; a grand

271

total of 25,364 U. S. Army and Air personnel. MacArthur
had left in Bataan and on Corregidor almost three times that
number of fighting men.

With this alarming news, came the report that except for
one brigade of the 6th Division that had just arrived in Perth,
every experienced unit of the splendid Imperial Australian
Expeditionary Force of three divisions was still concentrated in
the Egyptian desert and the Middle East. Yet their own home
lands were in imminent danger of actual invasion.

All that night the broken MacArthur walked the darkened
corridor of his railroad car.

But when dawn came he had recovered his calm purpose and
decision.

272

PART THREE

Enemies on
Two Fronts

1942-1945

Outline of the continental United States superimposed on the area of the early
eounteroffensive in the Southwest Pacific theatre.

14
1942-WAR ON A SHOESTRING

MacAxthur was seated on the rear platform of his observation
car W&en the train pulled into the great station at Melbourne
at 9 o'clock the following morning. It was some moments be
fore he realized that the cheering thousands crowding into the
station and overflowing the streets were there to welcome him.

An official party greeted him and escorted him through the
station. Outside he inspected a small guard of honor of Ameri
can soldiers. Since no U. S. infantrymen were available, a pla
toon of engineers had been brought in. If they had been West
Point cadets, the old soldier could hardly have been more proud
of them.

He was brought over to a little group of Australian and
American reporters and radio men. While at breakfast in his
car that morning it was suggested that he might be called
upon to make some statement on arrival at Melbourne, and
he had written out by pencil a few notes on a folded sheet of
paper. But when an announcer from the Australian Broad-

275

casting Company held up his hand microphone and asked that
he say a few words the General spoke extemporaneously and
straight from his heart:

I am glad indeed to be in immediate cooperation with the
Australian soldier. I know him well from World War days and
admire him greatly. I have every confidence in the ultimate
success of our joint cause; but success in modern war requires
something more than courage and a willingness to die; it requires
careful preparation. This means the furnishing of sufficient
troops and sufficient material to meet the known strength of the
potential enemy. No general can make something out of nothing.
My success or failure will depend primarily upon the resources
which the respective governments place at my disposal. In any
event I shall do my best. I shall keep the soldier's faith.

Within 48 hours after his heartening welcome he learned
many disturbing facts. It was immediately clear to him that a
dangerous sense of defeatism had settled down over a large
part of the seven million people of Australia. Civilians and
military men alike talked freely of the Brisbane Line, a purely
imaginary line drawn from Brisbane on the central-east coast
to Adelaide in the south, on which the fight for the true heart
of Australia would be made. Below this line were the four or
five most important cities and the larger proportion of the
population. The vast empty areas comprising three-quarters of
the continent to the north and west seemed undefendable and
after a token resistance would be abandoned to the Japanese.

In MacArthur's opinion his first problem was to replace this
psychosis of defeat with the challenging attitude that reflected
the real character of these brave and stubborn people. Despite
Churchill's violent disapproval, the three battle-proved Im
perial divisions were starting on their long and dangerous
journey home from Egypt and the Middle East. Their ar
rival would help stimulate confidence, but what was immedi
ately needed was a bold concept of a new strategy that would
break the mood of fear and despair.

Four days after he reached Melbourne MacArthur drove
the two hundred miles through rolling grasslands and groves
276

of eucalyptus trees to the capital at Canberra. There he was
closeted alone with the Prime Minister, John Curtin, who had
been responsible to a considerable degree for his assignment
to Australia.

In a matter of minutes the two men came to an understand
ing that was never once broken in letter or spirit. When they
arose to go to the meeting of the Australian War Council, Mac-
Arthur put his arm around the shoulder of the sturdy labor
leader.

"Mr. Prime Minister/* he said with obvious fervor and sin
cerity, "y°u and I will see this thing through together."

That evening he was the guest of honor at a banquet
given by the Prime Minister and members of the Parliament,
and the words he spoke there sped by press and radio to the
last lonely ranch station in the distant Back of Beyond. Aus
tralia was not to be abandoned and lost. It was a short speech
to carry such hope and promise:

Mr. Prime Minister, Distinguished Members of the Common
wealth Government:

I am deeply moved by the warmth of greeting extended to me
by all of Australia. The hospitality of your country is proverbial
throughout the world, but your reception has far exceeded any
thing that I could have anticipated.

Although this is my first trip to Australia I already feel at
home. There is a link that binds our countries together which
does not depend upon written protocol, upon treaties of alliance
or upon diplomatic doctrine. It goes deeper than that. It is that
indescribable consanguinity of race which causes us to have the
same aspirations, the same hopes and desires, the same ideals and
the same dreams of future destiny.

My presence here is tangible evidence of our unity. I have
come as a soldier in a great crusade of personal liberty as op
posed to perpetual slavery. My faith in our ultimate victory is
invincible, and I bring to you tonight the unbreakable spirit
of the free man's military code in support of our just cause. That
code has come down to us from even before the days of knight
hood and chivalry. It will stand the test of any ethics or philos
ophies the world has ever known. It embraces the things that are
right and condemns the things that are wrong. Under its banner
the free men of the world are united today.

277

There can be no compromise. We shall win or we shall die,
and to this end I pledge the full resources of all the mighty
power o£ my country and all the blood of my countrymen.

Mr. Prime Minister, tonight will be an unforgettable memory
for me. Your inspiring words and those of your compatriots will
be emblazoned always in my memory as though they had been
carved on stone or bronze. Under their inspiration I am taking
the liberty of assuming the high honor of raising my glass in
salute to your great country and its great leaders.

To the millions of discouraged Australians it was as if a
bright torch of hope had suddenly been lit. Shortly they were
to be lifted again by MacArthur's words, "We shall make the
fight for Australia in New Guineal"

For the moment he had neither a defined theatre nor a di
rective. The vague terms and promises made by President Roo
sevelt in his radiograms to Corregidor had left the general
impression in MacArthur's mind that he would replace Wavell
at least in the eastern half of the sprawling area of command
that had once been the responsibility of the British Field Mar
shal. But indecision and bickering had gripped the Pacific
Council sitting in Washington, and MacArthur's immediate
position was still nothing more than commander of the United
States Army Forces in Australia, which he automatically as
sumed as senior U. S. officer present.

New Zealand demanded that it retain control of its own
home defenses, and the U. S. Navy insisted that it be allotted
a large South Pacific area that had once been included in
Wavell's theatre. The British still claimed control over the
western portion of WavelFs limitless area. So it was not until
April 18, one month and a day after he arrived in northern
Australia, that MacArthur could announce the boundaries of
his Southwest Pacific theatre and his broad directives.

He was shocked when he had discovered that an American
Army division which had arrived on the Australian continent
in the middle of February had been reloaded and shipped
278

CENTRAL PACIFIC AREA

MacArthur's Southwest Pacific theatre*

some 750 miles eastward to the French Island of New Cale
donia. This Patch Force had left Australia 12 days before
MacArthur's plane had landed at Batchelor Field. The "Ameri-
cal" division at New Caledonia had been rapidly reinforced and
shortly the Patch Force alone had more American ground fight
ing troops than there were in the whole of the American com
mand in Australia. With it went a considerable air force and
a far larger navy than remained in the Australian area.

In the inter-service struggle for Pacific control the IL S.
Navy had acquired the North, Central and South Pacific areas,
grouped under the single designation of Central Pacific areas.
The lower western dividing line was the 160° longitude, so
that New Caledonia and the Southern Solomon Islands were
included in the Navy's South Pacific theatre*

Even before these military developments MacArthur had be
come the hero of a large segment of the American people
who were variously anti-New Deal, anti-Roosevelt, anti-inter
nationalist and anti-Europe-first. From the President and his
intimate advisors on down through the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
MacArthur's tremendous popularity was now viewed with grow
ing concern. Of all the high military figures he alone stood
in definite opposition to certain Roosevelt-Churchill ideas. He
had already become a symbol of the belief that the Pacific
war should not be completely neglected or overshadowed by
the Atlantic war.

In April Admiral Ernest J. King replaced the definitely pro-
British Admiral Stark as Chief of Naval Operations and Com-
mander-in-Chief of the Navy, and MacArthur now had the
benefit of an additional strong believer in the Pacific war. But
soon he was to discover that there was a reverse side to the
shield, in that among his most stubborn and persistent oppo
nents, as far as help for his Southwest Pacific area was con
cerned, were King and his naval commanders. The Navy, cha
grined and humiliated over its share in the disgraceful tragedy
at Pearl Harbor, insisted on taking over control of the Pacific
war. Both MacArthur and the Army, it stubbornly insisted,
must accept a secondary role in the Navy's private war: in the
eyes of the Navy men it was a large ocean, with small land areas,
280

which committed the U. S. to amphibious tactics and "island
hopping" — and final assault over water.

It was the natural conclusion that General Marshall would
automatically oppose Admiral King and his demands for more
and more control in the Pacific. As a matter of fact the records
of the Army War Planning Board prove that at times there
was sturdy opposition to the endless Navy requests. But noth
ing short of a complete and all-out Army resistance to King's
demands for enlarged control could have given MacArthur and
his theatre the protection they needed against submergence by
the ambitious and influential Navy.

Meanwhile a strange incident occurred in Congress that was
further to widen MacArthur's already somewhat strained rela
tions with the White House. On March 25 a resolution was
introduced in the Lower House that MacArthur be voted a
Congressional Medal of Honor. It was passed with applause,
and three days later the President duly bestowed the highest
decoration the nation possessed. The significance of the inci
dent lay in the fact that, despite its name, the medal is
actually proposed and given by the President and not by Con
gress. Rarely had Congress openly prodded a President to be
stow the Congressional Medal of Honor.

But this was of slight significance compared to events that
started two months later when the New York Legislature re
quested that June 13, the day General MacArthur had gradu
ated from West Point, be designated as MacArthur Day. Gov
ernor Lehman duly proclaimed the anniversary. At about
the same time a joint resolution was passed by Congress and
on June 12 signed by the President designating the same date
as MacArthur Day.

When a press conference reporter asked the President what
he thought of honoring living heroes by thus setting aside
special days in their honor, the President replied that occa
sionally he thought it was a good thing. He added that fifteen
war heroes were coming to see him tomorrow, and he did not
think tribute to them should be delayed until they were dead.

But Roosevelt's possible cynicism was by no means reflected
in the warm-hearted tributes John Curtin paid to the Ameri
can General at the start of a three-day celebration in Australia.

MacArthur Day opened the long week end on June 13, with
Sunday as American Flag Day, and Monday as the official
birthday of King George VI.

Despite the first call that Britain and Russia had on
the American war effort, and the fact that Admiral King and
his Pacific areas came next, MacArthur finally did begin to
get reinforcements and supplies. On April 6 the 4ist Na
tional Guard Infantry Division arrived, and on May 14 the
3^nd Division disembarked. Of equal importance was the ar
rival of brigades of the Imperial Australian divisions from the
Middle East.

MacArthur now felt certain that the potentially fine naval
and air base at Rabaul, New Britain, at the northern end
of the Solomon Seas, was the key take-off spot for further Jap
anese advances southward. They had seized it on January
2, but were slow in building it up. Yet it obviously would
be the staging area for enemy drives either southward toward
the lower New Guinea area or southeastward down the Solo
mons to the American-Australian line of communications. In
early March 1942, the Japanese had captured the airdrome at
Lae and its sister port of Salamaua on the eastern shore of
lower New Guinea.

One hundred and seventy-five miles to the south of Lae,
across the high Owen Stanley Mountains, lay Port Moresby,
the strategic advance stronghold that must be captured by
the enemy before he could hope to invade eastern and north
ern Australia. Port Moresby was 45 minutes by bomber from
the Japanese air strips at Lae.

On May 3 a Japanese task force with aircraft carriers, head
ing for Milne Bay, attempted to swing around the lower tail
of New Guinea. It was intercepted by a U.S. task force with
two aircraft carriers. The Battle of the Coral Sea that ensued
was the first sea battle in history in which no surface ship fired a
single round. The American force turned back this vanguard
of a probable amphibious invasion of Port Moresby, but it was
an expensive victory. The giant carrier Lexington was lost, and
the Japanese had only a small escort carrier sunk. But Moresby
was saved.

To the east, across the wide Solomon Sea, the Japanese
282

j

o

I

had landed and -built a fighter strip below Rabaul at Buka
Island, the northernmost of the Solomons. Their next move
was to construct strips on Bougainville, loo-odd miles below
Buka. On May 3, the day of the Coral Sea battle, Japanese
were landed on Tulagi, some 200 miles further to the south,
and the building of a fighter strip was started. The pattern
was now clear. The Japanese would soon have a series of air
bases in the Solomons operating southeast from Rabaul, which
would serve as a succession of stepping stones for their fighter
planes. Their long-range bombers would thus come under
fighter protection as they drove on southward to cut the
American- Australian line of communication.

This series of fighter bases and utility harbors formed the
dangerous left or eastern prong of their two-pronged advance
from Rabaul. On to the westward, 600 miles across the Solo
mon Sea, lay the second Japanese prong, resting for the mo
ment on Lae and Salamaua, but pointing straight toward Port
Moresby, Milne Bay and then on to the south to Australia itself.

Rabaul with its magnificent harbor and potential air facil
ities was thus the heart of the southern Japanese offensive
possibilities. Directly above it lay the great naval and air base
of Truk, and to the northwest Yap and the Palau Islands in
the Central Pacific area. Rabaul was thus the ideal half-way
base for future enemy thrusts to the south and southwest. But
MacArthur saw that it was still only lightly held and suggested
that if the Joint Chiefs of Staff would give him an adequate
carrier force and proper help, he could pinch it off before it
could be reinforced and turned into an almost impregnable
sea, air and ground fortress.

While MacArthur's recommendations were being consid
ered, Admiral Nimitz at Honolulu came forward with plans
for a raid on the new Japanese base at Tulagi, in the lower
Solomons, some 500 miles below Rabaul. He suggested that a
single Marine raider battalion could do the job, and his idea
met the approval of Admiral King. Both Marshall and Mac-
Arthur insisted, however, that the operation would demand a
much larger force than a battalion.

The Japanese naval code had long ago been cracked, and
U. S. naval intelligence was thus able to learn that since two
284

big American air carriers were still in the Coral Sea, the Japa
nese now planned to send their own carrier force to the Cen
tral Pacific in a move to crush Midway and then capture key
islands in the Aleutians. Nimitz immediately rendezvoused his
carrier forces close to Midway — one flat-top coming 3,000 miles
at full speed from the Coral Sea — and on June 3 and 4 their
planes located and sank four of the Japanese flat-tops. Over
night the entire naval ratio in the Pacific was changed to
America's advantage. It was a master stroke.

Four days after the brilliant Naval Air victory at Mid
way MacArthur again urged that an all-out surprise attack be
launched at the earliest possible moment against Rabaul. He
now had two full U. S. divisions and the experienced Imperial
Australian 7th Division that could be used as occupying troops
after an amphibious force had won the beachheads. He would
need the loan of a specially trained Marine amphibious di
vision to make the initial landing. And until fighter strips
could be captured or built, he would need carrier-based fighter
planes to support his bombers attacking from their home air
fields at Port Moresby.

The one requirement that was absolutely necessary was
unity of command. Since the fighting would be in MacArthur's
theatre, it was obvious to the army planners that he must be
in command. But as the initial action would be of a naval
nature, a naval officer, temporarily serving under MacArthur,
should head the sea task force.

General Marshall personally presented the bold idea on
June 25, but Admiral King and his navy advisors insisted
that MacArthur might lose the carriers operating in range of
the land-based bombers and naval flying-boats at Rabaul and at
other bases in the Solomons. MacArthur explained that he
had no idea of rushing blindly in to attack Rabaul; that he
would feel his way, and secure enough bases on the Guinea
coast and near enough to Rabaul to assure him ultimate air
protection.

But Admiral King still refused, arguing that an attack might
be mounted about August i but that the first objective should
be the inferior Japanese positions in the Solomons below Ra
baul and the Santa Cruz Islands. Rabaul, the ultimate objective

285

of the Allied counterattack, must come later. Not only must
the operations be under the South Pacific naval commander,
but MacArthur must contribute his surface ships and subma
rines and his long-range land-based bombers.

Once the Navy had completed the Tulagi operation, King in
sisted, then MacArthur could continue with the island-hopping
operation on up the Solomon chain to Rabaul. Since the initial
phase, called Task One, would cover Guadalcanal, part of
which lay in the Southwest Pacific theatre, MacArthur's east
ern demarcation line must be conveniently moved west from
160° East to 159°.

Task Two included capturing the Japanese bases in the re
mainder of the Solomons, and at Lae and Salamaua on the
northeast coast of New Guinea. Task Three indicated the seiz
ure and occupation of Rabaul and the other enemy positions in
the New Britain-New Ireland area. These would come under
MacArthur, but naval task commanders would always be in
command of all amphibious landings. It was a Presidential
directive.

By July 2 Marshall gave way to King's demands, and any
chance of a unified command in the South and Southwest Pa
cific areas was lost. Five days after the Marshall- King decision
it was discovered that the Japanese had moved on from Tulagi
and were starting an air strip on Guadalcanal Island. Naval
planners felt the emergency of the new situation, and Vice Ad
miral Robert L. Ghormley, in command of the South Pacific
theatre, was immediately ordered to fly to Melbourne from
New Zealand and confer with General MacArthur.

The two commanders saw eye-to-eye as they studied the vast
unfolding picture of the two-pronged Japanese drive southeast
ward and southwestward from Rabaul, down the Solomons and
the New Guinea coast. To turn it back there must be a single
strategic plan, utilizing in perfect harmony all the resources
of the two far-Pacific areas, the two services and their air
forces.

Since the time and chance to move swiftly against Rabaul
•had now gone, the three tasks must be synchronized, and the
whole vast operation must move ahead as one. Consequently
MacArthur and Ghormley recommended that the Tulagi-
28€

Guadalcanal action be delayed until more ships, planes and
troops were available, and until MacArthur was able to or
ganize sufficient forces to present an offensive power.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff promptly rejected the suggestion,
and Ghormley was directed to attack Guadalcanal on Aug
ust 7, one week after the original date set. The ist Marines
landed unopposed. But enemy forces were soon brought in by
sea from the north, and a desperate battle for the unfinished
airfield began. On the night of August 10 three U. S. cruisers
and an Australian cruiser were sunk off Savo island, in the
first of a series of deadly sea encounters, in which the Allies
were by no means always successful.

Vice Admiral Ghormley was relieved of command of the
South Pacific area on October 18 and was replaced by Admiral
William F. Halsey. But it was February 9, 1943, before the
Guadalcanal campaign officially ended. It had taken six months
and two days to do the job that had at first seemed such an
easy chore.

From the earliest days of his arrival in Australia the menace of
the Japanese-held base of Rabaul was as clear to MacArthur as
was the need to hold fast to the Port Moresby base in lower
New Guinea. Some 200 miles southeast of Moresby, at the
very tip of New Guinea's tail, lay Milne Bay, which was almost
as valuable a key spot for Allied defense and offense as
Moresby itself.

As his first move in putting into effect his decision to make
the fight for Australia in New Guinea, MacArthur dispatched
to Port Moresby two of the ablest members of his staff, Brig
adier Generals "Hal" George — who was soon to meet a tragic
death on the airfield at Port Darwin — and "Pat" Casey,
his chief engineer officer. They reported that conditions in
Moresby were deplorable from every possible military angle.

MacArthur immediately ordered the construction of airfields
and a base in this strategic stronghold at Milne Bay that could
handle his bombers, fighters and transport aircraft. Casey col
lected such bulldozers, scrapers and road-making machinery as

287

he could get together and hurried north with the colored g6th
U. S. Engineer Battalion. Along with him went a tall, lean,
Norwegian-born Missouri engineer, Colonel Jack Sverdrup,
who had a way with native workers that was shortly to pay off
in big dividends.

Stretching down the lower centre of the great island of
New Guinea, lay, like the dorsal vertebrae of some prehistoric
monster, the high mountains of the Owen Stanley range, their
peaks often hidden for days at a time by low-hanging clouds.
Rain forests covered their sides, and eternal danger hung over
the green, treacherous jungle of their eastern slopes that
Stretched on to the shore lines of the Solomon Sea.

From the western foothills of the range, some 30 miles in
land from Port Moresby, a trail or trace zig-zagged for 70
miles eastward over the high Kokoda Pass and on down the
long slopes to the swampy tropical country. It led to the coco
nut plantations and missionary establishments, built around
the clusters of huts called Gona and Buna on the eastern coast.

On July 22 an intelligence report of a most alarming na
ture came from Brigadier General Willoughby's G-2 office.
The Japanese had suddenly landed large forces at both Gona
and Buna on this eastern Guinea coast, almost directly across
the mountains from Moresby. A day or two later even more
disturbing news filtered in; a considerable enemy force, us
ing several hundred natives from New Britain as food and am
munition bearers, was advancing along the jungle trail that led
up the long mountain slopes toward Kokoda Pass, and then
across the hump of the range down to key Port Moresby on the
west.

A small Australian force had shortly before this landed by
barges at Gona, and although outnumbered 10 to i, it was at
tempting to block the advancing Japanese column. The Aussies
^could do little more than give way. Shortly other militia men
from the misty heights of the pass joined in the bitter resist
ance, but it was a losing fight from the start.

MacArthur reviewed the situation. Even if the tireless en
emy soldiers won the Kokoda Pass and started down the west
ern slopes of th<e Owen Stanley range toward Port Moresby, it
288

PLANNED

JAPANESE C * * >t * ,* £ 4

ENCIRCLEMENT

How the Jap$ tried to double-envelope Port Moresby in New Guinea.

did not seem humanly possible that they would have enough
strength left to exploit their incredible march. There was
nothing to be immediately alarmed over, although it did sig
nify the determination of the enemy to capture Moresby.

The day that the Japanese started toward Kokoda Pass, Ma
jor General George C. Kenney arrived in Brisbane, where Al
lied headquarters had recently been established, MacArthur

289

had asked for him to relieve Major General George H. Brett,
and when the stubby, dynamic air commander with the crew
haircut and an overwhelming sense of accomplishment re
ported the following morning, it didn't take MacArthur long
to give him his orders. He was to re-vamp and re-inspire the
5th Air Force. Things looked alarming at Port Moresby. It
was Kenney's first job to decide what was needed to build up
air power there in the quickest possible time. He left at dawn
the next morning. It was the way Kenney did things. In the
long list of brilliant air commanders he had a unique reputa
tion. In 1934 when the G.H.Q. Air Force had been established
by MacArthur as an integral part of the Four-Army Plan, Ken
ney had been made G-$ in the air setup. And now, eight years
later, MacArthur sent for him to help in the great task that lay
ahead.

It was evident now that the incredible Japanese advance
over the Kokoda Pass toward Port Moresby was no wild raid.
Five jungle-trained Japanese battalions were leap-frogging one
another, taking terrible losses as they first won the high pass
and then started down the western slopes toward the prize
harbor. Exactly 31 days after they had landed on the Buna-
Gona shoreline they fought their way into Kokoda Pass vil
lage, 55 miles from their starting point. Below them lay the
slopes of the Owen Stanleys. They pushed on without a mo
ment's rest.

Fully aware of the possibility of some other daring and co
ordinated Japanese move, MacArthur saw to it that the Aus
tralian General Thomas A. Blarney, Allied Ground Com
mander, placed two brigades of Australian militiamen and
regulars at Milne Bay southeast from Moresby. A company or
two of U. S. engineers were hurriedly trying to finish three
air strips, of which only one was serviceable.

Early in the morning of August 26, before dawn broke,
heavy Japanese forces landed at Milne Bay, and for twelve days
a desperate jungle battle followed. When the fighting ended
with the total annihilation of these forces (whose mission had
been to gain a foothold here at Milne Bay and then move by
barge up the Guinea coast to Moresby), their brothers on the
Kokoda Pass, almost 200 miles to the north, had reached a
290

defended ridge a scant 35 miles from their prize. The incredible
plan had been for the two attacking forces, one from the
east and the other from the south, to form a giant pincer that
would crush the key Port Moresby between them. The enemy
group that landed at Milne Bay had now been completely de
stroyed, and the other on the Pass was turned back when
only 22 miles from its goal, after it had performed deeds of
valor and endurance that were magnificent.

And now these plagued and defeated Japanese must fight
their way back up the deadly trail to Kokoda Pass, and then on
down the dangerous eastern slopes to their future burial grounds
at Buna, Gona and Sanananda. Xenephon's Ten Thousand
might have had a worthier cause, but they have no greater claim
to the harsh immortality of arms than does this band of two or
three thousand ragged, stubborn, hard little men, writing their
own deathless Odyssey on the Kokoda Pass.

Save for American airmen and the contribution of the U. S.
engineers at Milne Bay, the fighting so far in Guinea had been
done by the Australians. But soon the gsnd and 4ist U. S.
Divisions, now finishing their final jungle training north of
Brisbane in the Rockhampton area, would be fighting along
side the Aussies. At last MacArthur had sufficient manpower
to attempt the annihilation of the Japanese strongholds at
Buna and Gona on the upper coast of southern New Guinea.

But he had little in the way of a balanced offensive force.
His Seventh Fleet was a fleet in name only. It had no shore
bombardment warships, supply ships or special landing craft.
It had no transports or sea-lift, save of a token and shadowy
nature.

But MacArthur did have George Kenney. And faced with
the task of taking out Buna and Gona, with their 11,000 Japa
nese troops, protected by the sea on one side and by almost
impenetrable swamps on the other, he found that his appar
ently unsolvable problem of logistics was so much grist to
the mind and imagination of this extraordinary airman.

Already the Aussies had rolled the stubborn Japanese back

291

down the eastern end of the Kokoda Pass and across the
flooded rivers and the swampy plains to the coast. Kenney
quickly flew most of the U. S. 3^nd Division the 1,000 miles
from Rockhampton to Port Moresby. While this was going
on Colonel Jack Sverdrap started up the Kapa Kapa trail, be
low the Kokoda Pass, with a force of 297 "Fuzzie Wuzzies,"
armed with shovels, axes, picks and macKetes. The 2nd Bat
talion of the U. S. 12 6th Infantry slogged on ahead of him.
Sverdrup was travelling light. In sixteen days he followed
the trail on foot over the lower Owen Stanleys he hacked four
temporary air strips out of the tall native grass. The following
day Kenney's transports brought in 1,000 Aussies.

Sverdrup moved his grass cutters on to a spot called Dobo-
dura, which was ten miles from the Japanese fortress of
Buna. Quietly they cut out parallel strips in the tall grass cor
ridors. And now out of the murky Guinea skies the big
transport ships could slide in and unload men and food and
supplies. In a single day Kenney's fliers brought in an entire
army field hospital, operating tables and all. On their return
trip the transports were filled with sick and wounded men. The
vicious tropical diseases were knocking out four or five soldiers
for every one an enemy bullet cut down.

In many ways it was a one-sided fight that the Aussies and
the Americans were forced to make in this terrible Papuan
jungle along the east coast. Lack of sea power denied Mac-
Arthur the warships that might have shelled the rear of the
strong points and thick bunkers and the tough defensive posi
tions the Japanese had built. For all of MacArthur's hatred of
frontal attacks, he had no alternative for his Aussies and Yanks,
already weakened by malaria and poor food and sleepless
days and nights. Every advance had to be made through
swamps and deadly jungle straight in the face of an enemy
hidden in thick-walled, low-roofed and expertly camouflaged
bunkers that seemed impervious to bombs and cannon fire.

As a matter of fact things were going far from well with
the units of the 3 2nd American Division now stalled in front
of Buna. One day in late November MacArthur ordered Lt.
General Robert L. Eichelberger, I Corps Commander at
Rockhampton, to fly at once to advance G.H.Q. at Port
292

MucArthur prepares to take the offensive in New Guinea.

Moresby. Eichelberger and his chief of staff, Brigadier Genera^
Clovis Byers, reported in at the wide corridor of Government
House. MacArthur's information from Dobodura had him
deeply worried.

He told Eichelberger that he was putting him in command
at Buna. His first job would be to relieve the commander of
the gsnd Division, and he was to go right on down the
line and replace every unsatisfactory officer. He was to put
sergeants in charge of battalions if he found it necessary.

MacArthur made no attempt to disguise his deep concern.
Suddenly he stopped in front of Eichelberger and his voice
took on an almost terrifying tone.

"Bob, get me Buna — or don't come back alive!" It was a
definite order.

A moment later the harsh mood was displaced by one of
quiet despair as he spoke of the long series of disappointments
and failures that had followed him. "Why must I always
lead a forlorn hope?" he almost pleaded.

Eichelberger flew to Dobodura early that next morning.
Few soldiers ever faced a more desperate task than was his. First,
he must relieve his own West Point classmate and use his
pruning knife as far down as battalion commanders. Then he
had to rebuild morale and spirit by showing himself in every
wavering front-line post and on every dangerous trail. In less
than a week he had turned a discouraged, emotionally upset
and exhausted division into a fighting outfit.

To the north of the American sector across a roadless swamp
were the tough 7th Australian Imperial Forces, with pans
of the U. S. i26th Infantry, later relieved by the iGgrd Regi
ment of the U. S. 4ist Division. The nature of the fighting be
came clear with the relief of the 2nd Battalion of this 12 6th
Infantry. Of 1,100 men who had foot-slogged their way to the
Aussie sector, exactly 95 gaunt and utterly exhausted dough
boys were able to walk out to awaiting planes that flew them
back to the rest areas at Rockhampton.

Eichelberger took Buna village on December 14. Five days
before this the Aussies overran Gona, but they still faced days
of hard fighting.

In the nine and a half months since he arrived in Australia
294

MacArthur had checked the Japanese drive southward, saved
Port Moresby and Milne Bay and destroyed the enemy's for^
ward bases at Buna and Gona. Short-handed though he was,
he could finally take the offensive. He was sure now that noth
ing could stop him from ultimately fulfilling the vow, "I
shall return," that he had made on the grim rock of Corregi-
dor.

[Three years after this, MacArthur's then military secretary,
Brigadier General Bonner Fellers, unearthed in Tokyo a curi
ous bit of information; when the word of the capture of Buna
was brought to the Emperor at his palace in Tokyo, he sol
emnly shook his head. He sensed the skill of MacArthur and
the power that lay behind the Allied effort. Deep in his heart
he knew that Japan was doomed. He, as well as the American
commander far to the south, understood the deadly nature of
the advancing bomber line.]

MacArthur was glad that the terrible year of 1942 was ended.
The bitter memories of Bataan and Corregidor still haunted
him. And the road ahead was long and rugged.

He continued to be at the bottom of the global priority list,
and he could expect little help from Washington. His own
political friends back home had probably harmed him more
than they had helped him. The constant intrusion of his name
as a possible Presidential candidate in 1944 infuriated the
New Deal politicians, and the resentment of the White House
was reflected down through the War and Navy departments.

Early in October MacArthur felt compelled to repudiate
publicly any but purely military interests. His statement read:

I have no political ambitions whatsoever. Any suggestion to
the contrary may be regarded as merely amiable gestures of good
will dictated by friendship. I started as a soldier and I shall
finish as one. The only hope and ambition I have in the world
is for victory for our cause in the war. If I survive the campaign,
I shall return to that retirement from which this great struggle
called me.

He could only trust that 1943 would prove less harsh for
him both on the Japanese war front and the Washington polit
ical battlefront.

295

[To the question of how the system of by-passing or leap
frogging was subsequently developed in the Pacific, Mac
Arthur answered in late 19521:

The system is as old as war itself. It is merely a new name,
dictated by new conditions, given to the ancient principle of
envelopment. It was the first time that the area of combat em
braced land and water in such relative proportions. Heretofore,
either the one or the other was predominant in the campaign.
But in this area the presence of great land masses separated by
large sea expanses with the medium of transportation of ground
troops by ships as well as land transport seemed to conceal the
fact that the system was merely that of envelopment applied to
a new type of battle area. It has always proved the ideal method
for success by inferior in number but faster moving forces. Im
mediately upon my arrival in Australia and learning the resources
at my command, I determined that such a plan of action offered
the sole chance for aggressive action. For its application it de
manded a secure base from which to anchor all operations.
Australia was plainly the only possible base — but the enemy still
held the initiative and was advancing. The plan of the Aus
tralian Chiefs of Staff was to give up New Guinea and northern
Australia and defend on the so-cailed Brisbane Line. Such a
concept was fatal to every possibility of ever assuming the of
fensive and even if tactically successful would have bottled us
up on the Australian Continent probably permanently. I de
termined to completely abandon the plan and to stop the enemy
advances along the Owen Stanley Range in New Guinea. It was
one of the most decisive as well as one of the most radical and
difficult decisions of the war. Its success came through the Buna-
Gona-Milne Bay-Coral Sea battles. From this point on I never
doubted our full success. The first actual physical by-pass was
probably when I had Halsey's forces, which had been placed
under my operational control, by-pass the lines of Guadalcanal
along the west coast of Bougainville.]

296

15
1943-THE BITTER YEAR

The American ground forces under MacArthur's command at
the beginning of 1943 consisted of two National Guard infan
try divisions, a few thousand special troops and the ist Ma
rine Division, which was at Melbourne recuperating from
the costly Guadalcanal battle; at best MacArthur could con
sider its use in his theatre as only of a shifting and temporary
nature.

Official War Department figures eventually released, showed
the paucity of MacArthur's ground and air command in com
parison with the Army as a whole. On January i, 1943, the total
strength of the U. S. Army, including the Air Corps, was

MacArthur's total of 106,663 was 3>3 16 less than the army
and air personnel in Admiral Halsey's South Pacific theatre,
and 24494 less than Nimitz had in the Central Pacific, which
included posts in Hawaii and the Canton and Christmas Is
lands. The three Australian Imperial divisions and the Aussie
militia and air force are not included in the figures of the South
west theatre. Likewise Marine strength is not counted in with
the Army strength in the South and Central Pacific. Roughly
speaking, one balanced the other.

So MacArthur, at the turn of 1943, had slightly less than
2% of the total U. S. Army and air force. His allocation of
106,663 gave him almost exactly 10% of the 1,057,454 Army
and air force personnel then stationed outside of the Con
tinental limits of the United States. His share of the total
U. S. naval forces, in both men and ships, was even smaller
than his percentage of Army troops.

Fortunately the global war situation, save here in the distant
Pacific and Southeastern Asia, had started to turn definitely

297

in favor of the Allies. General Montgomery's ponderous su
periority in men, tanks and air at El Alamein had enabled him
to rout Rommel and drive his famous Afrika Corps across the
deserts of North Africa. Lt. General Eisenhower had landed in
French North Africa on November 8, 1942. His units were
pushing eastward to face the remnants of Rommel's armor at
Kasserine Pass and a final victory in Bizerte and Tunis on the
coming i gth of May.

Russia was still deep in her second winter of war, and Hit
ler's forces were breaking their back against Stalingrad. Russia
was now receiving 30% of the total lend-lease, and spring would
see her start back on the long trail that would eventually lead
to Berlin and the annihilation of the Eastern German armies.

In the air the British and Americans had shifted the com
parative air strength over Europe from a 2 to 3 ratio in favor
of Germany, to a 3 to 2 ratio in favor of the Allies. Germany
had received her death wounds on the bloody fields of Russia
and in the skies over her own homeland,

But the picture was very different with regard to Japan. In
the vast periphery of her conquests, only at Midway and in the
Coral Sea, at two tiny spots on New Guinea and in the lower
Solomons and on the western borders of Burma had she been
seriously challenged. She had been allowed the time to consoli
date her gains and her priceless war loot.

General George C. Marshall, dominant figure of the U, S.
Joint Chiefs of Staff, diligently seeking ways to expand Amer
ica's might in the European theatre, was determined to carry
out the Roosevelt-Hopkins pledge to Stalin for a second front.
In the late summer of 1942 he had pushed plans for an Allied in
vasion across the English channel and had almost broken with
Churchill because the British leader insisted that it would be
folly to attempt any such movement at this time. But Marshall
now returned to his determination to launch a great second
front in France by early summer of 1943.

Such was the global picture when on February 6, 1943,
Roosevelt and Churchill with their senior military chiefs and
civilian advisors met at Casablanca in North Africa. Four days
before the conference opened the Russians announced the liq
uidation of the German Army before Stalingrad. Complete vie-

Z9S

tory over Germany now appeared so certain that it seemed but
a small task to decide in advance th'e broad terms of surrender.
At a press conference the President launched the proposition
of unconditional surrender. It was to prove the most costly
phrase in the entire course of the war.

Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., was al
ready evolving the plan to turn Germany, once it was broken,
into a pastoral state by destroying her heavy industries and
prohibiting their reestablishment. Roosevelt's idea of un
conditional surrender fitted perfectly into the pattern of hate
and revenge then prevalent among a large group of Americans.
A brilliant young brigadier general, Albert C. Wedemeyer,
head of the War Plans section of the General Staff, accompanied
General Marshall to the conference and tried to warn his im
mediate superior of the eventual danger and disaster that lay
in the Morgenthau and Roosevelt theories of utterly crushing
Germany.

Events of great secrecy and questionable design were already
under way in Washington. It was some time later before the
almost unbelievable sequence of the hidden plans and devious
actions finally came to light; even a full ten years after the
events occurred there were still great breaks in the continuing
story of Communist intrigue and conspiracy that had been de
veloped and were functioning at high levels in Washington.

As early as 1934 a small but expertly organized Red cell,
called the Silvermaster Spy Ring, was planted deep into one of
the most sensitive posts of the Treasury Department, with
Harry Dexter White, chief assistant to Mr. Morgenthau, as an
important member. Shortly after this other cells were formed
with members settled in key spots in the White House, in
offices in the State Department, and in other top posts. This
was the beginning of a sordid conspiracy against the interests
of America and in favor of Communist Russia which did ir
remediable harm to America, the effects of which are still felt.

At this period centering in 1943 the principal and immedi
ate result was the plan written by Harry Dexter White and
backed by Morgenthau for the pastoralization of Germany.
Without the knowledge or approval of either Secretary of
State Hull or Secretary of War Stimson, Roosevelt presented

299

It as a fully accredited doctrine at the later Quebec Confer
ence, where it was duly accepted by Churchill.

In Washington the American Communists, who had kept
well under cover during the 22 months of the Hitler-Stalin
peace, were no longer official outcasts. Agents direct from the
Kremlin plotted the work to be done by their American
agents, and it was not long before spies planted in the very
heart of the government were stealing such priceless posses
sions as the atomic bomb secrets and the designs for proximity
fuses. Other Red spies soon began to influence highly im
portant policy-making decisions in the State Department. Al-
ger Hiss was eventually to become the best known of these
traitors.

Aliens in America and certain religio-political zealots whose
principal concern was to make sure of crushing Hitler and
to take revenge on the whole German nation found it easy
and natural to espouse the same general line as that put out by
the secret Communist plotters and their dupes, fellow travel
ers and sentimental followers. These two large groups, along
with the millions of pro-British interventionists and interna
tionalists, under the active leadership of the administration
completely dominated all channels of American propaganda.
No microphone or typewriter could long stand against these
men and groups, who seemed often to-be far more concerned
with revenge and with saving the Soviet and British empires
than with the ultimate fate of America. From the very start of
the war they had largely been against giving adequate support
for MacArthur and his area — 6,000 miles from San Francisco.

MacArthur, fighting his far-away war in the Southwest Pa
cific, had no part in the great decisions, and his advice was not
asked. Roosevelt and Churchill, and now Stalin, agreed that
the war against Japan must be kept in its distinctly secondary
place. Stalin had readily concurred as long as it was certain that
Japan was sufficiently engaged to prevent her attacking Siberia
and forcing Russia into a two-front war.

A new element now brought into the slightly confused pic
ture was the whispered suggestion that Stalin might withdraw
from the global war and make peace with Germany unless the
United States and Britain hurriedly established a second front
300

against Germany. The threat, completely unrealistic though it
was, apparently continued to carry great weight, particularly
in the minds of the President, Harry Hopkins and General
Marshall; but somehow it was held less important by Winston
Churchill.

The war against Japan must drag along. Germany must first
be driven to her knees and accept unconditional surrender, be
fore the men fighting in the air and jungles and on the danger
ous seas in the distant Pacific would get help.

As early as 1943 the Asiatic dreamers in the Kremlin
visioned the possibility that great elements of the Japanese
Army, particularly in Manchuria and Korea, might eventually
be won to Communism. If at the end of the war Russia could
have an important hand in the making of the Pacific peace, not
only China but Japan might be drawn into the Red orbit and
thus become partners in the Communist conquest of the world.

MacArthur's immediate problem in New Guinea was to push
the forward fighter strips further and further ahead in the rug
ged country back from the coastal regions and thus furnish air
cover for his advancing long-range bomber line. He never
lost sight of the fact that his principal target was Rabaul, so
that he could break out through the Vitiaz Strait into the
Bismarck Sea and start on the long trip back to the Philippines.

He still had little or no fleet or even adequate sea-lift for
troops and supplies, but he did have Kenney and the~American
and Australian air forces. The bitter campaign against Buna
and Gona proved what the transport plane could do as a pack-
horse and sea carrier. By gaining air supremacy MacArthur
could control the sky and make the ground and waters below
it safe from enemy air and sea attacks.

The reduction of the minor Japanese shore base at Sala-
maua, and the far more important concentration some twenty
miles on to the north at Lae, came first on his schedule. To
ward the end of February 1943, Brigadier General Charles A.
Willoughby's intelligence discovered that a large convoy was

301

being prepared to transport the equivalent of a Japanese army
division from Rabaul to the New Guinea port of Lae.

MacArthur called in Kenney, who took off for New Guinea
to work out the job with his deputy, Brigadier General Ennis
Whitehead. Playing the influence of the weather and a lot of
hunches, they decided to gamble on the Japanese convoy com
ing through the Vitiaz Strait at 10:15 on the morning of
March 3. That would put the ships in range of the whole 137
aircraft that Kenney had in New Guinea at that time. The
gamble paid off. At 10:15 A.M. the Yank and Aussie aviators
opened the almost fabulous engagement known as the Battle
of the Bismarck Sea.

When it was over, six Japanese destroyers and from eleven
to fourteen merchant vessels lay at the bottom of the strait,
somewhere around 10,000 Japanese personnel were destroyed,
and at least 60 aircraft were shot down. The Allied losses
were 13 men killed and 12 injured, with 4 airplanes shot
down and 2 crash-landed at their home bases.

Kenney took off immediately for Washington in company
with Major General Sutherland, MacArthur's chief of staff;
the Southwest Pacific's G-g, Brigadier General Stephen J.
Chamberlain, and Captain H. J. Roy, the naval representative.
Jt was a combined begging and selling mission.

In Washington animosity against MacArthur was reaching the
boiling point by the time Sutherland and Kenney started back
for Australia and New Guinea. There were definite rumors that
Roosevelt was about to relieve him of his Southwest Pacific
command. But it was certain that MacArthur would demand
an Army court of inquiry, and his friends would insist on a
Congressional hearing. It might be best to let his deputies
get back to their stations before taking any drastic steps.

Then a strange public-relations consideration entered the
picture. From Switzerland on March 12, came confidential
news that the two American crews who had been shot down in
the Doolittle raid over Tokyo in April 1943 had been bru
tally executed. For ten days the report had been held back in
the fear that the public reaction might call for immediate and
increased action against Japan. Certainly it was not the appro
priate time to relieve MacArthur.
302

Dividing his time between Brisbane and Port Moresby, Mac-
Arthur laid out his plans to pinch off Lae, Salamaua and then
Finchhafen with the least possible loss of American and Aus
tralian lives. As the hot tropical days and weeks slipped by,
MacArthur was ceaseless in his demands upon Kenney and
Whitehead — now aided by an imaginative and experienced air
operator, Colonel Merian C. Cooper — to continue blasting Ra-
baul and a great new enemy base on up the Guinea coast at
Wewak. Nothing could induce MacArthur to move until he
had complete mastery of the air. With that assured, he could
use his advance landing fields exactly as more conventional
commanders used their expensive coastal beachheads and sea
bases to move ahead.

It was already August 1943 when Rear Admiral Daniel E.
Barbey, now assigned to the Southwest Pacific theatre, for the
first time was able to assemble sufficient landing craft and sea-
lift — and secure enough equipment for the newly organized
army amphibian force — to undertake and sustain a fair-sized
coastal operation. Early on September 4 Barbey landed General
Ralph M. Wooten's AIF gth Division — the splendid Rats of
Tobruk — at Hopoi Bay, east of Lae.

At 9:00 the next morning 305 Allied planes rose from nine
fields in lower Guinea and took their place in a formation that
was as perfect as a sky parade on Air Force Day in peace time.
It headed for a spot called Nadzab in the high and almost inac
cessible Markham Valley, a scant 20 miles northwest of
enemy-held Lae. In front rode five squadrons of deadly 6-255.
They came sixteen abreast like spanking circus horses. Each
carried eight .5o-caliber guns in its nose, and they cut the tall
grass as clean as Sverdrup's natives could have done. Behind
them sailed a dozen A-2OS that laid in even ribbons the three
lanes of smoke. In the open columns between the smoke lanes
came 96 C-47 transport planes, spaced in three rows of 32
planes each. At their head rode a 6-17 Flying Fortress, with
Douglas MacArthur as its star passenger. Before noon, the en
tire U. S. 503rd Parachute Regiment had hit the silk, along
with a full battery of Aussie 25-pounders.

303

It was America's first effort at a large scale air-drop and it
was perfectly executed. Lae and Salamaua were now sur
rounded and helpless — triple-enveloped, as a matter of fact.

Within 18 days both enemy strongholds on New Guinea had
fallen, along with Finchhafen — and here at hand lay the waters
of the key Vitiaz Strait. To clean out the scattered Japanese
bases still remaining on New Britain Island on the east side of
the narrow strait, would be practice work for the small but
well-oiled MacArthur machine.

Gloucester, at the west tip of New Britain, fell to the ist
Marine Division on December 26. The Vitiaz Strait was now
clear. Ahead lay the remainder of the great land bridge of
Dutch New Guinea. Admiral Barbey had landed these marines
in a highly skillful blind night maneuver through dangerous
coral reefs with MacArthur's shoestring Navy.

Back in July of 1943 the decision was made in Washington
that Admiral Halsey would have tactical charge of the actual
operations in the drive on northwestward up the Solomon
chain of islands, and MacArthur would have the strategic com
mand.

From their first meeting Halsey and MacArthur formed a
strong personal liking for each other. More than once the sol
dier declared that the fighting spirit of Nelson had descended
on the pugnacious old sea bull. In return Halsey recognized
the uncanny talents that MacArthur exercised in his twin for
mulae: "All there is to know is when and where to fight" and
"Always hit 'em where they ain't."

The entire vast Solomon-Bismarck seas area was in the na
ture of a double horseshoe, with the two backs of their "U's"
resting on New Britain Island — one horseshoe pointing south
and enclosing the Solomon Sea; the other pointing north, en
compassing the Bismarck Sea. In other terms, each arm might
be described as one arm of a gigantic bear hug.

Briefly stated, the MacArthur-Halsey plan was for Halsey to
advance up the east side while MacArthur moved up the west
arm of the lower horseshoe, with the 6oo-mile wide Solomon
304

«t

«0

O

Sea between. From the start Admiral King had seen to it that
Halsey's people lacked little in their prolonged struggle to
hold Guadalcanal and finally to drive out the Japanese rein
forcements. Before the desperate six months of fighting ended,
the Navy had fed in two Marine divisions and two Army di
visions of the XXIV Corps. A fresh Army division and the grd
Marine Division landed after organized resistance on Guadal
canal ended on February 9, 1943.

The long climb up the eastern Solomon ladder was a heart
breaking task for the South Pacific command, consuming most
of 1943. By November Halsey had fought his way northward to
Princess Augusta Bay in the center of the western shoreline of
the great island of Bougainville. Overwhelming air, sea and
ground forces had been brought together for the landings. In
the assaulting armada were bombardment squadrons of war
ships, rocket ships, fiat-tops, the latest troop and tank-landing
ships and such equipment as MacArthur's men, grimly bat
tling far to the westward on Guinea, had never dreamed of
possessing.

On the second day of Bougainville, Kenney's 5th Air Force
let loose all it had against Rabaul, and in exactly twelve min
utes the New Guinea sky-raiders took out airdromes and sup
ply dumps, sank destroyers and merchant ships and destroyed
100 enemy planes on the ground in Rabaul harbor. The great
menace of Rabaul was a thing of the past. The capture of
Augusta Bay to the south, with MacArthur's air force in New
Guinea to the west, now exposed Rabaul to attack from either
one or both Allied bases. Rabaul's back was broken.

Everything to the south was irretrievably lost to the enemy.
More than 50,000 Japanese troops still in the Solomons to the
southward would now find themselves trapped, their rice
and bullet lines cut, and themselves abandoned.

MacArthur had only to finish his mopping up of the tiny
Jap bases on the east shore of the Vitiaz Strait, and he could
call it a year. The sea and air roads northward were now open
to him. He was at last on his way home to Manila.

[To the question of how seriously the lack of carriers
affected his operations in the SWPA, MacArthur, years after
the events, bluntly answered:
306

Most seriously. The very essense of our so-called "by-passing"
method of advance depended upon securing air control over the
area covered in each forward step. In the present state of devel
opment of the art of war no movement can safely be made of
forces on sea or land without adequate air protection. The limit
of such protection in our case was the possible radius of opera
tion of our fighter planes. This radius had to be measured from
the actual location of our ground air bases. This required the
seizing or construction of such new bases at each forward move
ment. The presence of carriers with their inherent movability
would have immeasurably increased the scope and speed of our
operations. I know of no other area and no other theatre where
they could have been used to such advantage. The enemy's di
version of his air forces on many different islands and fields was
peculiarly adapted to his piecemeal destruction which would
have been drastically assisted if we could have utilized the mo
bility of carriers in surprise concentrations. For instance, with
our overall inferior air strength, in order to neutralize the en
emy's superior combined air strength at Rabaul and Aitape,
being limited to ground air strength, I had to locate a temporary
air base in New Guinea between these two enemy air garrisons
to operate by surprise, with my entire force concentrated first
on the one and then on the other. Then- combined force could
have beaten me but divided I destroyed them unilaterally. The
presence of carriers would have entirely altered our potential.
Prime Minister Curtin did his best to persuade Prime Minister
Churchill to let us have carriers, and I did the same with Wash
ington but without success. To this day I cannot understand why
the decision was in the negative.]

General MacArthur's reaction at the time to this exact period
)f the war is expressed in a letter he wrote on June 13 to
in old Army friend who had been on his staff in Manila in
1936 and '37. It read:

I was so glad to receive your letter of April 30, and to know
where and how you were. Little or no news reaches me and I
have lost all touch with my old friends. Your estimate of the
situation is substantially correct. It is too bad that so few of

307

those who control would agree with you. It has been a desperate
time for me since the war started, always the underdog, and
always fighting with destruction just around the corner. I could
have held Bataan if I had not been so completely deserted. I take
some comfort from Stonewall Jackson's creed, "that if necessary,
we will fight them with sticks and stone." But I find that sticks
break in our hands and stones can't go very far. A merciful God
has miraculously brought me through so far, but I am sick at
heart at the mistakes and lost opportunities that are so prevalent.

To MacArthur it was evident that this year the Washington
front had been almost as difficult for him as the Japanese front.
He had barely escaped the angry storm of reproof that
blew up in the Capital as a result of his demands expressed
jointly with Prime Minister John Curtin in March and April
that more attention and help be given the Southwest Pacific
theatre.

His friends, however, had not for a moment let up on their
bitter harangues against the White House and the Joint Chiefs
of Staff for what they considered the unfair treatment of Mac-
Arthur and his area. This fight had for the most part been in
the hands of a little group of politicians and publishers and
a few embattled columnists and radio commentators who
might be called the anti-Roosevelt crowd. These kindred spir
its were using every method they could find to support Mac-
Arthur, to discredit the administration and its conduct of the
war and to oppose the ambition of the President for a fourth
term.

In middle May of 1943 the pro-MacArthur faction gained a
vociferous champion from the Democratic ranks. Senator A. B.
(Happy) Chandler of Kentucky suddenly broke out on the
Senate floor with the statement that the recent Allied successes
in North Africa, in an area that had been considered British
responsibilities, had so changed the whole global picture that
more attention should now be given the Pacific, and it should
be done before Japan could consolidate her gains.

"I am one citizen of this country/' the Senator went on,
"who believes sincerely that the Pacific cannot wait, and that
if anything comes of the conference now being held by Mr.
Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill a major decision should be made
308

to give the Pacific war the consideration which facts justify it
having in the general scheme of world affairs."

The following day the President vigorously repudiated
Chandler's suggestion. A day later Churchill, addressing a joint
session of Congress, pledged that Britain would in the proper
time wage the war against Japan "while there is breath in our
bodies and while white blood flows through our veins."

From August 17 to 24, 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt met
in their first conference at Quebec. The Pacific was low on the
agenda, and while the meeting was mainly in preparation for
possible later conferences in which Stalin would be present,
there were important decisions made regarding the Atlantic
theatre. Eisenhower was to be in charge of the Mediterranean
area. Marshall's ambitions to command the European theatre
and the great cross-channel invasion was left for later decision.

Within a month this command problem created a violent
storm both in inner circles and in Congress. Those behind
Marshall suddenly presented the idea that he be made global
commander in chief, with the title of General of the Armies.
Either Lt. General Somervell or Lt. General Eisenhower
would then become Army Chief of Staff. Senator Chandler
countered with the suggestion that there be a single Pacific
and East Asia Command under General MacArthur. Even the
name of Lord Louis Mountbatten was tossed into the contro
versy.

The American and British press carried reports that Mac-
Arthur's "part in the war is to be progressively curtailed and
his command reduced to a secondary and subsidiary role." In
a desperate attempt to neutralize the criticism against him
and his strategic conceptions, MacArthur released on Septem
ber 21 a carefully worded reply. He had just completed
double envelopment of Salamaua and Lae with extremely
small losses, and the following day he would capture
Finchhafen. His statement read:

It makes little difference whether I or others wield the weapons,
just so the cause for which our beloved country fights is vic
torious. However subordinate may be my role I hope to play it
manfully.

My strategic conception for the Pacific Theatre, which I out-

309

lined after the Papuan Campaign and have since consistently
advocated, contemplates massive strokes against only main stra
tegic objectives, utilizing surprise and air-ground striking power,
supported and assisted by the fleet. This is the very opposite of
what is termed "island hopping" which is the gradual pushing
back of the enemy by direct frontal pressure, with the consequent
heavy casualties which will certainly be involved. Key points
must of course be taken but a wise choice of such will obviate
the need for storming the mass of islands now in enemy posses
sion. "Island hopping" with extravagant losses and slow progress
— some press reports indicating victory postponed as late as
1949 — is not my idea of how to end the war as soon and as
cheaply as possible. New conditions require solution, and new
weapons require maximum application and imaginative methods.
Wars are never won in the past.

I have no personal military ambitions and am perfectly con
tent in such role as may be prescribed for me.

The remarks by no means lessened the bitter conflict. Propo
nents of the strategy recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
to send large American air and ground forces to the Burma-
Chinese area now smarted under new attacks by Senator
Chandler. Chandler insisted that if and when the Burma Road
was opened, it would be of little real consequence.

Either by direct letter or by other means Chandler suc
ceeded in securing a rough outline of MacArthur's strategic
conception, and he openly laid it out on the Senate floor: Once
the Solomon-Bismarck seas were cleared, he claimed that Mac-
Arthur would move upon the great southern Philippine island
of Mindanao, and from there probably advance to Luzon and
eventually on to Formosa. From the Philippine bases American
submarines and bombers could cut the Japanese life-line that
led from her rich loot in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies to
her home islands. Deprived of oil, rubber, tin, rice, quinine and
other vital necessities, she would see her war potential ruined.

Again Chandler and his Congressional friends insisted that
MacArthur be put in supreme command of the entire Pacific.
Roosevelt made no effort to hide his violent opposition, while
the Army high command concentrated on trying to find out
just how Chandler had obtained his secret information.

It had now become everybody's fight in Washington, and
310

the Navy did not miss the opportunity to get in its licks. Early
in November Rear Admiral W. EL Young stated that "Amer
ican supplies are reaching the Southwest Pacific in quantities
sufficient for large scale operations against the Japanese."

Once again MacArthur answered, and on November 13 re
leased a formal statement;

I am reluctant to discuss such a subject. The Southwest Pacific
has something less than 5% of American military resources, and
is now receiving something less than 10% of what America is
shipping overseas. This is much more than formerly. The per
cent of air resources is somewhat lower. Without complaint, the
area is doing everything it can with what it has.

On the strictly political side of the Washington controversy,
the unauthorized campaign to project MacArthur's name into
the coming Presidential campaign was beginning to assume
greater importance. In the early summer of 1943 Governor
Thomas E. Dewey of New York was the leading Republican
candidate, but Wendell Willkie, who had made the unsuccess
ful fight in 1940, was still being seriously considered. Mac-
Arthur's name was now definitely injected into the contest.

In Chicago plans for nation-wide MacArthur-for-President
clubs were pushed, although it was admitted that the General
had not been consulted regarding the action. On July 9 a local
club formally opened its headquarters.

A few days later Colonel Robert R. McCormick, editor of
the Chicago Tribune^ said in an interview in New York City:
"Roosevelt is in a hell of a position. If MacArthur wins a
great victory, he will be President. If he doesn't win one, it
will be because Roosevelt has not given him sufficient sup
port/'

That same day Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg remarked at
his home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that "at present Mac-
Arthur would be the best choice for the Republicans for next
fall."

Obviously MacArthur was becoming involved in a situation
that might well get beyond his control. On August 25 Rep
resentative Hamilton Fish gave out a statement in Goshen,

311

New York, that indicated how a number of professional politi
cians were thinking:

Republicans and anti-New Deal Democrats are united in op
posing the 4th term for President Roosevelt and the power-
hungry bureaucrats and left-wing New Dealers in Washington.

I am in favor of drafting General MacArthur as the Repub
lican candidate for President and Commander-in-Chief of our
armed forces on a win-the-war platform and on a one-term plank,
as opposed to a fourth term and military dictatorship.

Two weeks later Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas injected
a new note into the picture by the statement that he believed
that either General Eisenhower or General MacArthur would
be the Republican Presidential candidate in 1944. He con
tinued:

Either of them would make a fine President. The people of
Kansas lean towards Eisenhower because he comes from Kansas,
but they consider that MacArthur would make an excellent
choice, too.

On September 17 the Gallup poll announced the result of
its question: "If the Presidential election were being held to
day, and Roosevelt were running for President on the Demo
cratic ticket and MacArthur on the Republican ticket, how
do you think you would vote?" The nation-wide result was:
Roosevelt 58%; MacArthur 42%.

In the farm areas, particularly in the anti-internationalist
Middle West, however, the result was almost the exact re
verse: Roosevelt 44%; MacArthur 56%.

Across the Atlantic and at the eastern end of the Mediterra
nean and deep in the Middle East, events that would help
shape the political world for possibly a hundred years or more
were in the making. At Cairo from November 22 to the 26th,
1943, Roosevelt and Churchill conferred with Chiang Kai-shek.
China was definitely promised by Roosevelt that she was to
have Formosa and Manchuria and all Japanese interests
therein, once a Pacific victory was secured.
312

Two days later the President and the British Prime Ministe:
met at Tehran for a three-day conference with Dictator Stalin
Already it was evident that Roosevelt was beginning to weaker
in energy and mental coordination. His own certainty that he
could win Stalin to the Roosevelt design for a peaceful world
was quietly being fostered by the shrewd and calculating Red
dictator.

Eisenhower, who was present at the Casablanca conference
and was a member of the American delegation at Cairo, did
not go to Tehran. MacArthur had not been invited even to
the Cairo conference, where important decisions involving
China and the Pacific areas were decided.

In addition to Eisenhower at Cairo, the President's top
group of advisors, both at the conference on the Nile and at
Tehran, included Harry Hopkins, Admirals Leahy and King,
and General Marshall. Not one of them seemed willing or able
to warn the President effectively that Stalin was swiftly becom
ing the master of the situation. Marshall especially was an
ardent spokesman for Russia to enter the Pacific war, appar
ently without regard to the price the dictator might ask. Yet
there could be little doubt that neither Germany nor Japan
could possibly win against the war machines they were now
facing.

General Marshall decided to return to Washington via the
Indian Ocean and the Pacific. The news of the impending visit
of the Army Chief of Staff reached MacArthur at his advance
headquarters in Port Moresby as he was taking off for a con
ference with Lt. General Krueger at his headquarters on
Goodenough Island. Only the landings at Port Gloucester re
mained unfinished in his long campaign to win both sides of
the Solomon Sea and clear the way through the Vitiaz Strait
for advanced bases in New Guinea on the road back to the
Philippines.

He was of the opinion that as a result of both the present
and the past differences between himself and Marshall, their
meeting might be somewhat embarrassing to his distinguished
visitor. MacArthur seriously considered conducting the
Gloucester operations in person, thus relieving Marshall of his
presence.

313

"No, I'll stay/' he finally remarked to one of his senior staff
officers. "But I'll make the prophecy that he'll never see me
alone. He'll always find a way to have someone else present."

Kenney met General Marshall at Port Moresby and flew him
to Goodenough Island, where the visitor had a long conference
with General MacArthur and his senior commanders. At their
meeting MacArthur and Marshall called each other by his given
name and there was every evidence of friendly cordiality. At
the pep talk and general survey made by Marshall it turned out
that MacArthur was the complete listener.

Marshall went on his way the next day. MacArthur was right;
never for a moment had Marshall sought to be alone with him.
Nor did he evince any desire to confide to MacArthur his ideas
on the global struggle. It was about this time that MacArthur
remarked to a friendly visiting officer, "No theatre commander
has ever been kept in such abysmal ignorance by his govern
ment as I have been."

16
MACARTHUR ESCAPES THE TRAP

MacArthur had long been convinced that the least expensive
and quickest way to win against Japan was to pool all the
resources of the various Pacific areas under one supreme Pacific
commander. This would make conclusively overwhelming con
centrations of land, sea and air forces for the successive steps
essential to the ultimate defeat of Japan.

There were two possible approaches to the Japanese home
islands, and the enemy had succeeded in setting up island
roadblocks in each of these great sea-and-land avenues of at
tack. In choosing either route for the main effort against Japan
the first essential was to pool all resources in one command,
314

The Navy under King preferred the approach that led al
most straight across the central Pacific, in a ponderous move
ment westward, building bases on the captured enemy islands
as it drove ahead.

MacArthur with insufficient sea forces to challenge even a
small part of the Japanese fleet was fortunate in having the
great buzzard-shaped island of New Guinea as a land-bridge
that offered a road of nearly 1500 miles toward the Philip
pines, his prize objective. Kenney's New Guinea-based planes,
clearing out enemy air bases and concentrations ahead of the
advancing ground forces, could cover the march as far as the
extreme upper tip of New Guinea. But from there on the great
Central Pacific fleet would have to be borrowed for strategic
and tactical support.

Once bases were secured in the Philippines, the sea lanes
between Japan and Southeast Asia and Indonesia could be
cut by submarines and bombers. The numerous enemy air
and sea bases that lay to the east in the lower Central Pacific
route would likewise be flanked and thus by-passed and left
"to die on the vine." Most of the fighting, under this concep
tion, would take place in MacArthur's Southwest Pacific area
and consequently would largely be under his command.

In an attempt to sell this idea to the South and Central
Pacific naval, air and ground commanders, MacArthur sent
Generals Sutherland, Chamberlain and Kenney and Vice Ad
miral Thomas C. Kinkaid on an exploration trip. On January
24, 1944, the group arrived in Hawaii and started their mis
sionary work. Their first convert was army Lt. General Robert
G. Richardson; next came Admiral Jack Towers, the oldest
airman on Nimitz's staff and one of the most experienced and
wisest flyers living. Admiral Forrest Sherman, the Central
Pacific chief of operations, was apparently already convinced,
and Admiral "Mick" Carney, Halsey's chief of staff, now
agreed to the general strategy. Admiral Charles H. McMorris,
Nimitz's chief of staff, argued that the enemy-held Marshall
and Caroline Islands should first be captured before any final
decision was reached.

On the third day of the conference Admiral Sherman and
General Sutherland took off for Washington in the hope of

315

winning over the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Kenney hur
ried back to Brisbane with the good news that everything
seemed propitious. MacArthur complimented his airman on
the progress made, but reserved judgment as to the outcome.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington listened quietly
while Sherman and Sutherland presented their arguments for
a single unified axis. But Admiral King was too navy-minded,
and apparently General Marshall and possibly General Arnold
were averse to any strategic plan in which the Southwest
theatre would become the primary area of Pacific combat,
and which would result in making of MacArthur the supreme
commander of the main Japanese war effort.

Bitter repercussions regarding proposed new military ranks
and titles were already rampant in Washington. Early in Jan
uary 1944 the President publicly backed the idea of giving
Marshall and Arnold the rank of General of the Armies, a
rank that had been voted Pershing at the end of World War I.
As for the Navy, King and Leahy would be rewarded with a
new rank of Admiral of the Fleet. MacArthur and Nimitz, who
were actually in command of the fighting in the Pacific war,
were left completely out of the picture.

Bills were drawn up and sent to Congressional committees,
but friends of both Pershing and MacArthur made such vio
lent protests that the whole idea was dropped. General Malin
Craig, who succeeded MacArthur as Army Chief of Staff and
who had been recalled to active duty as head of the Promotion
and Retirement Board, called the whole business "disgrace
ful."

Preparations for the Presidential election of the coming fall,
involving as it did the dispute over a fourth term for Roose
velt, suddenly developed a new angle: the definite suggestion
that General Marshall be the running mate of the President
in order to insure for the Democrats the soldier vote. The
Roosevelt boom, too, was given decided impetus by the highly
questionable statement of the President's own physician, Vice
Admiral Ross Mclntyre, who publicly guaranteed the good
health of the President, although those who saw him at close
range knew that he was probably dying.

Meanwhile ardent groups continued to build up the
316

candidacy of MacArthur for the Republican Presidential
nomination. Raymond Clapper, a distinguished newspaper
columnist, visited MacArthur's headquarters and cabled home
that in his opinion the General would take the Republican
nomination if it was offered him. MacArthur issued no denial.

In Washington the President approved a carefully drawn
policy agreement that would settle the bitter argument
whether a Regular Army officer had the right to enter poli
tics. The decision held that an officer in the regular establish
ments could become a candidate only if the nomination were
tendered to him "without direct or indirect activity or solicita
tion on his part."

But MacArthur had little time at the moment to ponder
over the new ruling. On February 27 he slipped out o£
Brisbane, and flying to Milne Bay, at the lower tip of New
Guinea, boarded the U.S.S. Phoenix as the guest of Vice Ad
miral Kinkaid. Two mornings later under a murky sky a little
group of swift destroyers, with a single reinforced squadron
of the 5th Cavalry tucked on board four of the tin cans,
dropped anchor in the bay of Los Negros, in the Admiralty
Islands. After a short preliminary bombardment the men went
ashore. MacArthur went with them.

A few days before this, Kenney's reconnaissance planes had
brought back pictures showing that there was no real enemy
strength on the island of Los Negros, which had the only good
airfield in the group. Willoughby's intelligence insisted that
there were 4,000 troops, mostly on the main island of Manus,
which proved to be substantially correct. The isolated Ad
miralty group, with the magnificent harbor of Manus, was on
the extreme eastern flank of the enemy-held Bismarck Sea, and
MacArthur immediately decided that if he grabbed it in a
surprise attack and was able to hold it and gain its airfields,
his own right flank would be fully protected for his coming
advance up the coast of Dutch New Guinea. The little force he
took with him could handle an initial landing and reconnais
sance on Los Negros, and he personally would make the decision
whether to pull out or hold on until reinforcements from the
ist Cavalry Division, already loaded and waiting, could be
hurried forward.

317

Sniper bullets were still whistling from the edge of the air
strip when MacArthur shoved forward from the beach to look
over the situation. Finally he turned to Brigadier General
William C. Chase, commander of the 800 dismounted cavalry
men, and said, "You've got your teeth in him now. Don't let
go!" Chase grinned and nodded his head in approval. He knew
that his men here on Los Negros could beat off the dribbling
attacks from nearby islands.

[A curious incident occurred on the warship going toward
the uncertain adventure, when MacArthur's aide, Colonel
Larry Lehrbas, casually mentioned to the General that the
few troops he would be sending ashore had had no actual
battle experience. MacArthur replied slowly: "I have known
this 5th Cavalry for almost 60 years. When I was a little boy
of four my father was a captain in the igth Infantry at Fort
Selden, in the Indian frontier country of New Mexico.
Geronimo, the Apache scourge, was loose, and our small in
fantry garrison was to guard the middle fords of the Rio
Grande. A troop of this same 5th Cavalry under Captain
Henry Law ton, who was later killed as a major general in
the Philippines, with Charles King, an old friend of my
father's, as his lieutenant, rode through to help us. I can still
remember how I felt when I watched them clatter into the
little post, their tired horses gray with desert dust. . . .
They'd fight then — and they'll fight now. Don't worry about
them, Larry."]

[When asked long after the war as to the background of the
decision to by-pass Rabaul and strike at the Admiralties, Mac-
Arthur answered:

The potential value militarily of Rabaul to our arms was to
furnish an advance naval base. In the progress of the campaign
its value to the enemy had been practically neutralized as an air
or naval base for further enemy advances and was largely re
duced to a stronghold of defense — but its harbor facilities were
good and lacking such an advanced naval base for ourselves it
represented an appreciable prize. When our intelligence detected
that the Admiralties, with a fine naval haven at Manus, was
lightly held the picture changed. The base at Manus was supe
rior in every way and farther advanced. If it could be taken
318

with little loss it would save our relatively weak forces the heavy
penalty necessary to reduce Rabaul. When General Kenney re
ported to me that Whitehead's reconnaissance confirmed no
heavy concentration of enemy forces at Manus I determined to
attack and if successful leave Rabaul "to die on the vine/* The
surprise was complete, the Admiralties were taken with minor
loss and Manus became our great intermediate naval base.]

The brilliant move to the Admiralties brought a fresh
avalanche of favorable publicity for MacArthur. But the States
were eight or ten thousand miles away and in Australia and
New Guinea there was more than enough to occupy the Gen
eral^ mind. For one thing he faced the task of flying to the
Australian capital at Canberra to be the guest of honor at a
banquet given by Prime Minister Curtin and the Australian
Parliament celebrating the second anniversary of his arrival at
Port Darwin. Only once before, in March of 1942, when he
had first journeyed to Canberra, had he left his immediate
war duties for a single day or night.

At the close of the great dinner the Prime Minister and the
opposition leader made gracious speeches, and then John
Curtin introduced the General. Deeply touched by the solemn
moment and by memories of the anguish and defeat that had
surrounded his initial arrival, MacArthur arose, stern and
white-faced. He used no notes. In cold type much of the
warmth and quiet emotion of his talk this night is lost:

Mr. Prime Minister: I cannot tell you the sense of distinction
I feel in being Australia's guest tonight. It adds another link
to the long chain of friendship which binds together our peoples
and our countries. It is a symbol of that unity of effort that
recognizes but one indomitable purpose — victory.

The last two years have been momentous ones for Australia.
You have faced the greatest peril in your history. With your
very life at stake, you have met and overcome the challenge.
It was here the tide of war turned in the Pacific, and the mighty
wave of invasion broke and rolled back.

Two years ago when I landed on your soil I said to the people
of the Philippines whence I came, "I shall return." Tonight I
repeat these words, "I shall return." Nothing is more certain
than our ultimate reconquest and liberation from the enemy of
those and adjacent islands. One of the great offensives of the

war will at the appropriate time be launched for that purpose.
With God's help it should be decisive, not only of redemption
but of Japanese isolation from southern conquests and of Chinese
restoration of Pacific Ocean communication.

On such an occasion as this my thoughts go back to those men
who were sent on their last crusade in the jungle thickness to
the north where they made the fight that saved this continent.
With faith in their hearts and hope on their lips they passed
beyond the mists that blind us here. Their yesterday makes pos
sible our tomorrow. They came from the four quarters of the
world, but whatever the land that gave them birth, under their
stark white crosses they belong now to Australia forever.

I thank you, sir, for the high honor and hospitality of tonight
in their and their comrades* names. I shall always recall it as
joined with their immortal memory.

Rough-handed men, who had come up from the mines and
ranches and factories of this isolated continent, made no effort
to hide the tears in their eyes as they cheered this leader
from a distant land.

That night the Prime Minister told General MacArthur an
amusing story about his visit to Washington. At least once
MacArthur repeated it [to the author]. Curtin had finished his
official farewells and was ready to fly back to Australia, when he
decided to drop in at the White House for a purely informal call
on the President. Roosevelt received him graciously, and Curtin
explained that he had come only because he wanted to thank
him again for his many courtesies and personal kindnesses.

Just as he was getting ready to leave the Prime Minister
suddenly said: "Mr. President, certainly it's none of my busi
ness and probably I shouldn't say this, but I can assure you in
utter honesty and sincerity that General MacArthur has no
more idea of running against you for the Presidency than I
have. He has told me that a dozen times."

According to Curtin *s story there were a number of papers
on the President's desk, and as Roosevelt reared back in his
chair he threw up his arms and the papers were scattered in
all directions.
320

"Steve! Steve!" the President yelled gleefully.

The understanding press secretary, who had just left the
room, stuck his head back into the study and the President
shouted the news.

He was as happy as a boy with a new toy, Curtin told
MacArthur. Then he added: "I'm sure that every night when
he turned in, the President had been looking under the bed
to make dead sure you weren't there."

But shortly the entire political atmosphere of MacArthur's
unsolicited candidacy was to be blackened by a cloud that was
of a most embarrassing nature. On Friday morning, April 14,
papers over the country carried the text of two letters that a
freshman Representative, Dr. A. L. Miller of Nebraska, had
written MacArthur, and his replies. On his own responsibility
the Congressman had released both his own letter and Mac-
Arthur's, which had been marked Personal.

The first letter read in part:

Sept. 18, 1943
My dear General:

. . . There is a tremendous ground swell in this country
against the New Deal. They have crucified themselves on the
cross of too many unnecessary rules and regulations.

You should not be a candidate for the Presidency, but should
permit the people to draft you. When drafted you should accept
the nomination by saying "I accept the nomination as a candi
date for the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces." I am
convinced that you will carry every state in the Union and this
includes the solid South.

Let your friends in this country nail to the cross the many
vicious underhanded moves which will be started to smear and
destroy you as a citizen and commander in the Pacific.

Undoubtedly this letter will be read and perhaps censored.
The New Deal, including President Roosevelt, is scared to death
of the movement in the country for you. Roosevelt will prob
ably not even be a candidate if you are nominated.

I hope you will not consider that these ideas are conceived
with any thought of personal gain to myself or party. I am sug
gesting them because I am certain that unless this New Deal can
be stopped our American way of life is forever doomed.

You owe it to civilization and to the children yet unborn to

321

accept the nomination, which I am most certain is just as sure
as the sun will rise tomorrow. You will be our next President.
With kindest personal regards,

Sincerely yours,
A. L. Miller, M.C.
Fourth District, Neb.

MacArthur's answer of October 2 obviously was intended
only for the Congressman's eyes:

I thank you so sincerely for your fine letter. ... I do not
anticipate in any way your flattering predictions, but I do un
reservedly agree with the complete wisdom and statesmanship
of your comments.

I knew your state well in the days of used-to-be. I have en
joyed many a delightful hunting excursion there and shall always
remember with so much gratefulness the whole-hearted hospital
ity and warm comradeship extended to me on such occasions.
Those days seem singularly carefree and happy compared to the
sinister drama of our present chaos and confusion.

On January 27, 1944, Dr. Miller wrote a second letter to
the General that read:

. . . During the holidays I had an opportunity to visit through
Texas, California and Nebraska. I again want to tell you there
is a tremendous revolution on in this country. It is more than
a political revolution. It is a mass movement by the citizens who
are displeased with the many domestic mistakes now being made
by the Administration. They axe also convinced that the events
leading up to Pearl Harbor and since Pearl Harbor in the allo
cation of war supplies are not above critical examination.

... A great many people in the country are seriously con
cerned about the wave of communism and nationalism which
seems bound to engulf the European countries, Asia and South
America. It is that system of government generally in which gov
ernment is no longer the servant of the people but their master.

If this system of left-wingers and New Dealism is continued
another four years, I am certain that this Monarchy which is
being established in America will destroy the rights of the com
mon people.

There is no movement which attracts so much attention and
so little criticism as the one that is labelled MacArthur for
Commander-in-chief and President of a free America, , . . It
322

is going to take an individual who is fearless and willing to make
political sacrifices to cut out the underbrush and help destroy
this monstrosity . . . which is engulfing the nation and destroy
ing free enterprise and every right o£ the individual.

MacArthur answered on February n, 1944, and it was ad
dressed as follows:

PERSONAL:

Dear Congressman Miller:

I appreciate very much your scholarly letter of January 27.
Your description of conditions in the United States is a sobering
one indeed and is calculated to arouse the thoughtful considera
tion of every true patriot.

We must not inadvertently slip into the same condition in
ternally as the one which we fight externally. Like Abraham
Lincoln, I am a firm believer in the people, and, if given the
truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis.
The great point is to bring before them the real facts.

Out here we are doing what we can with what we have, I will
be glad, however, when more substantial forces are placed at my
disposition.

With cordial regards and best wishes,

Douglas MacArthur

When the letters were published a barrage of bitter recrim
ination descended on MacArthur, now in the midst of prep
arations for the great Hollandia operation. He had no other
recourse but to issue a statement in his own defense. At best
it was a most awkward situation, with a possibility of dire
consequences. His public answer, dated April 17, 1944, was
the third time that he had repudiated all political ambitions:

My attention has been called to the publication by Congress
man Miller of a personal correspondence with him. In so far as
my letters are concerned they were never intended for publica
tion. Their perusal will show any fair-minded person that they
were neither politically inspired nor intended to convey blanket
approval of the Congressman's views. I entirely repudiate the
sinister interpretation that they were intended as criticism of any
political philosophy or any personages in high office. They were
written merely as amiable acknowledgments, to a member of

323

our highest law-making body, of letters containing flattering and
friendly remarks to me personally. To construe them otherwise
is to misrepresent my intent. I have not received Congressman
Miller's third letter in which he is reported to advise me to an
nounce candidacy for the office of President of the U. S.

The high Constitutional processes of our representative and
republican form of government, in which there resides with the
people the sacred duty of choosing and electing their Chief
Executive, are of so imposing a nature as to be beyond the sphere
of any individual's coercion or decision. I can only say as I have
said before, I am not a candidate for the office nor do I seek it.
I have devoted myself exclusively to the conduct of war. My sole
ambition is to assist my beloved country to win this vital struggle
by the fulfillment of such duty as has been or may be assigned
to me.

But even this formal disavowal failed to pacify the angry
critics who sprang to the defense of the President and his ad
ministration. So great was the chorus of disapproval that on
April 30, shortly after his return from the unprecedented Hol-
landia by-pass, he felt it necessary to issue a follow-up state
ment. This time his remarks were so pointed and conclusive
that they removed all possibility of Roosevelt having to face
him in his fight for a fourth-term election in November. Also,
the Dewey forces no longer had to consider the threat of Mac-
Arthur as a condidate for the Republican nomination. His
statement read:

Since my return from the Hollandia operation I have had
brought to my attention a number of newspaper articles profess
ing in strongest terms a widespread public opinion that it is
detrimental to our war effort to have an officer in high position
on active service at the front, considered for nomination for the
office of President. I have on several occasions announced I was
not a candidate for the position. Nevertheless, in view of these
circumstances, in order to make my position entirely unequivocal,
I request that no action be taken that would link my name in
any way with the nomination. I do not covet it nor would I
accept it.

Apparently this was a definite enough avowal to satisfy the
most skeptical critic or the worried professional politicians.
324

On January 2, 1944, MacArthur's people swooped down on
the small Japanese base of Saidor on the Guinea coast a short
distance above the mouth of Vitiaz Strait. It advanced
Kenney's fighter line so that his bombers could penetrate
under fighter cover northwestward to the great enemy base at
Wewak. In the country between Saidor and Wewak were 5,500
Japanese at Madang and an additional 10,000 at Hansa Bay.
At Wewak were 16,000 enemy troops, and at all three bases
were air strips and fighter craft.

By-passing Madang and Hansa Bay, MacArthur might strike
directly at Wewak, but it would be contrary to his dictum of
"Hit 'em where they ain't." Wewak was apparently as far as
his fighter planes could protect his bombers. Two hundred
miles on up the Guinea coast was the beautiful harbor of
Hollandia on Humbolt Bay. Willoughby's G-2 had been re
porting for some time that the Japanese were building the Hol
landia area into a great supply base; its three fields, tucked
well behind the Cyclops Mountains, were swiftly being turned
into an important air center.

While preliminary work was going ahead on plans for the
landing at Hansa Bay, Brigadier General Bonner Fellers, the
able and imaginative head of G-g's Planning Board, conceived
the idea of an alternative move, embracing a great 5oo-mile
by-pass directly to Hollandia. However, it was frowned on,
and Fellers was directed by his immediate superior, Major
General Steve Chamberlain, to forget his bold dream and com
plete plans for the Hansa Bay operations. But MacArthur,
upon being advised of the daring Hollandia suggestion, quietly
sent word to go ahead with drawing up the plan for the big
jump. Kenney was consulted, and both he and the Navy rep
resentative, Captain Ray Tarbuck, were confident that the great
by-pass could be successfully accomplished.

The day that orders for the half-way Hansa Bay landings
were actually being mimeographed, MacArthur called a con
ference of all his commanders and bluntly announced Hol
landia as the next operation. Brigadier General Fellers, who
had originally conceived the idea, was called on to make "the

325

dry run" before the group. The brilliant plan would by-pass
60,000 enemy troops and leave them for mosquitoes and croc
odiles and hunger and disease to finish off.

Kenney, who enjoyed the prospect of the impossible, gave
ample assurance that he could take out all enemy airfields
at Hollandia and in the intervening 500 miles of coastal coun
try. By March he would receive a batch of new, long-range
P-39 fighters, and by installing extra belly-tanks in his old
models he would actually have fighters that could accompany
the bombers all the way to Hollandia and return.

MacArthur immediately asked the Navy in the Central and
South Pacific for landing craft and escort carriers, with the
additional loan of the beautiful new flat-tops of the main
Pacific fleet to give protection immediately before and during
the actual Hollandia landings. Admiral Nimitz flew out to
Brisbane to draw up the final integration of his naval and air
forces with those of the Southwest Pacific.

Manus Harbor in the Admiralties was chosen as the base
for the joint rendezvous, with Admiral Dan Barbey in charge
of the amphibious force. Lt. General Walter Krueger, com
mander of the Sixth Army, accompanied the expedition, but Lt.
General Eichelberger, with his I Corps, comprising the 24th
and 4ist U. S. Infantry Divisions, would have actual command
of the landings at Hollandia and Tanahmerah and the capture
of the airfields to their rear. A third landing would be made
at Aitape, 120 miles to the east of Hollandia, with Brigadier
General Jens Doe in charge. MacArthur sailed with Admiral
Kinkaid on the cruiser Nashville. As air-coordinator of
Nimitz' flat-tops and the ground army the fabulous Colonel
Ralph J. Erickson was aboard Lt. General Eichelberger's de
stroyer.

During the night of April 19-20 the 300 ships secretly as
sembled outside Manus, and at dawn there spread out before
the excited eyes of the thousands of ship-borne soldiers a sight
no words can quite describe. In a circle some ten miles across,
the mighty armada moved northwestward as though bound
straight for the great Japanese base at Palau. Swift destroyers
rode the outer circles. Each of the three groups that were to
make the landings sailed in columns, with American and
326

Or

O

D

2

05

I

Australian cruisers in between. Escort carriers sent their planes
aloft to scan the distant horizons for enemy snoopers. Far to
the northwest a task force of swift new battleships and carriers
blocked the approach of any Japanese fleet from the north.
They would provide the final preliminary bombardment of
the three beaches and cover the actual landings.

Suddenly during the night the armada swung to the left and
each column cut back to its target. At 6:20 in the morning
the warships opened up. Most of the 4,000 enemy troops were
quartered behind the mountains on the three airfields, and
the few soldiers at the landing beaches in the Hollandia area
fled in terror and surprise. Vast stores, guns and thousands of
tons of equipment and supplies were abandoned, and only a
few scattering shots met the Americans as they stepped ashore
from their landing craft and amphibious alligators and amph-
tracs. Not a single American soldier was killed on the beaches
by enemy fire.

Within a day or two after their capture the air strips were
hosts to Kenney's fighters, and within another week the
bombers were heading northward up the doomed Guinea
coast. By May 17 the island of Wakde fell, and ten days later
Eichelberger opened the desperate battle among the connect
ing caves and deep bunkers on Biak Island; and once again he
proved the quality of his leadership. His fine work on the Hol
landia operation had won "Uncle Bob" the command of the
brand new Eighth Army.

MacArthur's headquarters had now been located in Brisbane
for two years. In the late summer of 1942 his advance head
quarters were established in Port Moresby, in the Papuan end
of New Guinea. Whenever such severe fighting as the Buna
and Lae operations was going on, he lived at the old Govern
ment House in the tropical port, and from here flew to the
battle areas to make his own first-hand surveys.

At Brisbane a double suite of rooms in the housekeeping
end of the modern Lennon's Hotel was set aside for him and his
family. The hotel had been taken over for the senior members
328

of his headquarters staff, and a few rooms were reserved for
Very Important People, many of whom never got a glimpse
of the Supreme Commander.

The usual maid service was supplied by the hotel for the
family quarters, but almost all the simple meals were prepared
either by the energetic and devoted Jean MacArthur or by Ah
Cheu. The General's taste in food ran to unpretentious dishes,
and when his aide would telephone Jean that he was about to
leave his office a few blocks away, she would busy herself with
the late lunch or supper. Regardless of the time, she sat down
and shared the meal with him.

His schedule was similar to what he had been following for
the quarter-century since he had been appointed superintend
ent at West Point when he wore the single star of a brigadier
general. He would get to his office somewhere around 9:30 or
10:00 and not leave until nearly 1:30 or 2 o'clock. After
lunch he would ordinarily take a short nap, and once he re
turned to headquarters he seldom left until 8 or 9 o'clock. Often
he would be awakened in the night to receive important cables
or intelligence reports.

There was usually time for official military and civilian
visitors from home, but he was unimpressed by names alone or
by missions. There were no formal dinner parties, public re
ceptions or official nonsense of any kind. He kept his mind
and his time free for important business only. About the only
variation in his old formula was that he no longer spent late
hours at night in reading.

Along in this spring of 1944 news came from the fighting
front that a Japanese junior officer had been captured, and in a
pocket of his tunic had been found his diary with proof that
he had taken part in beheading one of the Doolittle fliers who
had been shot down in the Tokyo raid. An old writing friend
attached to headquarters in a very personal way happened to
be with the General when he received the report.

He read it aloud [to the author], and slowly a fire of anger
began to blaze deep within him. He rose to his feet and as he
paced back and forth a solemn resolve fused into words.

"I shall assign the finest lawyer in my command to this man's
defense," he vowed, his eyes flashing with rage. "I shall see to

329

it that he is given a fair and just trial. And if he is found
guilty I shall hang him to the tallest tree in New Guinea, so
help me God!"

While MacArthur was clearing the way through the Vitiaz
Strait in December 1943, and then in late April conducting
his great 5oo-mile Hollandia jump and the subsequent opera
tions against Wakde and Biak, Nimitz' navy had not been idle
in its vast Central Pacific area.

Back in November of 1943 it had captured Tarawa in the
Gilbert Islands, but due largely to faulty intelligence work
regarding the shore approaches and the enemy's guns, this was
a costly victory. The price paid was 985 brave marines killed
and 2,193 wounded. The island had been defended by 2,700
troops and 2,000 civilian laborers.

But the terrible mistakes were not repeated when, on the
last day of January, triple landings were made on the
Kwajalein atoll by the 2nd Marine Division and the Army's
7th Infantry Division.

Eniwetok came next on the Navy schedule, and then on
June 15, 1944, landings were made on the well-defended island
of Saipan in the Marianas. The hard battle continued until
July 9, and mopping-up operations by the 27th Infantry Divi
sion continued for nearly two months. All but 2,068 of the
29,000 in the Japanese garrison were killed. The American
casualties were 3,126 killed,. 326 missing, and 13,160 wounded,
a total of 16,612.

Planes from the aircraft carriers of the great Central Pacific
Fleet had begun pounding away at the enemy's 500 land-
based planes in the Marianas for four days before the assault
landings began. An additional 500 Japanese carrier-based
planes had been assigned to the defense of the island group,
but most of them were suddenly shifted to oppose MacArthur 's
operation against Biak far to the southwest. By the time the
Saipan landings began Admiral Marc A. Mitscher's brilliant
task force had virtually wiped out all this enemy air.

Four days after the beachheads had been established on
330

Saipan, a Japanese carrier force let loose a major air action
that immediately brought on the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
During the opening day 402 enemy carrier planes were de
stroyed at a cost of 26 American Navy planes: and American
submarines sunk two enemy carriers. On the second day four
more Japanese air carriers, one battleship, one cruiser and one
tanker were sunk. With six of her air carriers gone to the
bottom, Japan's air strength on the sea was never to regain its
potency. The result of this great American naval triumph was
made clear four months later in the three key battles of Leyte
Gulf.

Shortly after this a victory over nearby Tinian, in the
Marianas, was won by the Navy at a bargain price. But the
same could hardly be said for Guam, where the grd Marine
Division, with the ist Provisional Marine Brigade and the
77th Infantry Division in support, suffered 1,919 killed and
7,122 wounded — a total casualty list of 9,041. The Japanese
lost some 17,000 killed and 485 taken prisoner.

These bloody and prolonged battles for the Marianas were
still in progress when MacArthur landed by his private plane,
Bataan, at Pearl Harbor on July 26. Two weeks before this
he had received a cable from General Marshall ordering him
to attend a coming conference with a Mr. BIG in Hawaii. It
was a fair guess that the Mr. BIG was the President of the
United States.

As no mention of bringing staff officers with him had been
made, MacArthur left on his plane with only his personal
aide, Colonel Larry Lehrbas, who was enroute to the United
States; a medical aide, Lt. Colonel Chambers, and Brigadier
General Bonner Fellers, G-i, who a short time before had
been in charge of the planning section of his staff. MacArthur
paced up and down the narrow aisle of the Bataany disgruntled
and angry at the idea of being called away from his war duties.

Now and again he would stop his endless walking to give
vent to Ms feelings. The words fairly crackled out between
his lips during one particular outburst: "The humiliation of
forcing me to leave my command to fly to Honolulu for a politi
cal picture-taking junket! In the First War I never for a mo
ment left my division, even when wounded by gas and ordered

331

to the hospital. In all my fighting days I've never before had to
turn my back on my assignment/'

When his plane taxied in at the landing field he was driven
at once to the quarters of Lt. General Robert Richardson, the
commander of all army training in the Central Pacific and
an old friend from West Point days. Soon Richardson arrived
with an invitation from the President asking MacArthur to
board his ship immediately.

MacArthur was still in his flying clothes when the President
enthusiastically greeted him and seated him to his right. The
movie cameras began clicking. MacArthur had not seen the
President for almost seven years, and he was shocked to note
how obviously his health had failed.

Back at Richardson's quarters later that afternoon Mac-
Arthur angrily reiterated that he felt convinced that the Presi
dent's purpose in the trip was just as he had surmised — that
Roosevelt, having been nominated in Chicago for a fourth
term, felt it would be good politics to show himself intent on
winning the Pacific war and conferring in complete harmony
with MacArthur.

Just before dinner that evening MacArthur was handed a
highly confidential letter from Admiral King, who had left
Pearl Harbor only a day or two before. Obviously it was King's
friendly idea to put MacArthur on his guard regarding the
proposed intrusion of the British into the Far Pacific battle
area. Such differences as there were between the two men had
always been solely professional and not personal. Certainly
they shared the same views regarding what was best for their
country when it came to the neglect of the Pacific in favor of
the European and Mediterranean theatres.

In June 1944 the British and American Combined Chiefs
of Staffs had met in London. The British advanced the idea
of their taking over the operations against the Japanese-held
Dutch East Indies, using the western and northern ports and
installations in Australia as their base. This included the sug
gestion that as soon as MacArthur's forces were established in
the Philippines, Mountbatten would take command of Aus
tralia and the rich Dutch islands.

The letter only added to the resentment MacArthur must
332

have had over being pulled away from his own theatre and
responsibilities for this present meeting with Roosevelt. Nor
were matters helped when after dinner at Richardson's quar
ters he received a message from the President inviting him to
ride with him on a tour of inspection the following morning.
MacArthur was scheduled to have dinner with Roosevelt that
next evening, to be followed by a final conference on the
second morning.

That night MacArthur felt almost as depressed and
frustrated as he had on Corregidor on the day, more than two
years before, when he fought against the black mood of
despair that came with the President's personal orders that he
leave his doomed garrison and proceed to Australia. As he
walked the floor of his bedroom here in Richardson's quarters
this late July night of 1944, he talked without restraint to a
trusted member of his staff regarding his long years of struggle
and his many defeats and frustrations: and he spoke of his
country's inadequate leadership, the terrible mistakes made
in the war and America's uncertain future. He seemed to
unburden himself in a way he had seldom if ever done before
in all his life.

The following morning he sat with the President and Ad
miral Nimitz in a motor car that was driven slowly through
an avenue of smartly dressed soldiers, lined up shoulder to
shoulder on both sides of the highway. General Richardson
put on a magnificent spectacle, with more than 25,000 troops
snapping their rifles to "Present Arms" as the President rode by.

During the lengthy inspection MacArthur turned to Roose
velt and asked if he, the President, believed he could defeat
Dewey as easily as he had defeated Willkie four years previ
ously. Roosevelt replied that he was so busy with the war that
he was paying little attention to practical politics. Gently Mac-
Arthur prodded him, and finally Roosevelt observed that
Dewey was a nice little man but inexperienced. He left the
impression that he had no fear of the New York governor
as Republican candidate.

When the dinner was over at the President's house that
evening, the three guests, Admirals Leahy and Nimitz and
General MacArthur, pulled up their chairs in front of a great

333

wall map. Admiral Nimitz was asked to present the Navy's
plan for Pacific victory. Quietly the Admiral explained that
once MacArthur was well planted on Mindanao, he was to be
left there with two or three army divisions and part of his 5th
Air Force. He would be relieved of the remainder of his troops
and air and assigned to the task of cleaning up the Japanese
garrisons in the lower Philippines and the Dutch East Indies.
Such part of the 5th Air Force that remained under his com
mand would have the job of neutralizing the enemy air in
Luzon, which, in turn, would be by-passed by the Central
Pacific Forces, despite its quarter-million Japanese troops and
the great naval and air bases still functioning there.

In the meantime the Navy would continue its drive across
the Central Pacific, building strong bases as it pushed west
ward. By the early summer of 1945 it would be ready to in
vade Formosa, if necessary. MacArthur's air would continue to
be held responsible for the neutralization of the Japanese air
on Luzon.

MacArthur was astounded. So this was the reason for the
conference! He was to be forced to go back on his solemn
pledge to the thousands of tortured and starving American
prisoners of war and internees and to the millions on the
Islands who had believed in him and in America. His own
vow to liberate the Philippines, as well as Roosevelt's pledges,
and his country's American national honor, were all to be
betrayed!

George Marshall's name was not mentioned, but MacArthur
could hardly help concluding that he must at least tacitly have
given his consent to this disturbing plan to abandon the liber
ation of 7,000 emaciated American war prisoners and civilian
internees and 17 million enslaved Filipinos. But, obviously,,
even the Joint Chiefs of Staff would not dare sponsor such a
radical undertaking as this unless the President himself could,
be influenced to make the final decision.

MacArthur, aroused and alert, kept his composure and
quietly began his arguments. He had not prepared himself to^
face any such shocking change in his over-all war plans, but he
rose to the challenge. He explained that he could not guaran
tee to neutralize the net of Japanese air bases on Luzon from.
334

either Mindanao or Leyte. He could accept the assignment
only if he occupied the lower end of the long, narrow island of
Luzon itself.

If he were permitted to take Manila Bay, American sea,
submarine and air power could then cut the life-line of enemy
merchant shipping from the conquered areas of Indo-China,
Malaya, Siam, Burma and the Dutch East Indies. From the
Manila Bay district and from air bases in the northern part of
Luzon, the enemy air forces on Formosa could be smothered
and its landing beaches neutralized.

Later that night MacArthur managed a few moments alone
with the President. He warned him of the political conse
quences of the move.

"You cannot abandon 17 million loyal Filipino Christians
to the Japanese in favor of first liberating Formosa and return
ing it to China," he passionately argued. "American public
opinion will condemn you, Mr. President. And it would be
justified."

Nimitz and the President's personal chief of staff. Admiral
Leahy, returned to the room, and the talk went on until mid
night. Months before this MacArthur had figured out his re
sultant plan of operation, once he had sufficient sea, air and
ground forces, and when the time had come to land at Lingayen
Gulf in Luzon and then advance southward to Manila. He de
clared now that he could be in Manila in five weeks from the
day his troops stepped ashore on the landing beaches, 120
miles above the Philippine capital.

Admiral Leahy challenged the statement. MacArthur an
swered that all that he could do was to give his honest pro
fessional estimate. Leahy graciously answered that the General
was in a position to know, but that he could not conscientiously
approve of the estimate. Time was to prove how right Mac-
Arthur was, for six months later he completed the almost un
believable task of entering Manila in exactly 26 days from
the initial landings at Lingayen Gulf.

The President made no final decision. They would talk it
over the following morning at 10:30. The President planned
to board his cruiser after lunch, and MacArthur would then
return to Brisbane by air.

355

After this session had ended, the navy strategists among them
selves had outlined additional arguments which Nimitz now
presented. Again MacArthur made it clear how necessary for
winning the war was the capture of Luzon, and how easy it
would be to cut Japan off from the oil and rubber, rice and
tin that she was getting from her conquests along and below
the South China Sea, once Manila Bay and northern Luzon
were in American hands.

The President interrupted: "But, Douglas, to take Luzon
would demand heavier losses than we can stand. It seems to
me we must by-pass it."

There was neither bitterness nor excitement in MacArthur's
studied reply.

"Mr. President," he began, "my losses would not be heavy,
any more than they have been in the past. The days of the
frontal attack are over. Modern infantry weapons are too
deadly, and direct assault is no longer feasible. Only mediocre
commanders still use it. Your good commanders do not turn in
heavy losses."

Then he outlined his whole conception of future operations
in the various areas of the Southwest Pacific. Once he held the
whole of the Philippines, he would begin the reconquest of the
Dutch East Indies, using mostly Australian troops for the
ground operations. He would move down on these Dutch is
lands from his bases in the north, attacking them from their
rear.

For a moment he referred to the items in the confidential
letter he had received from Admiral King, which had briefed
him on the British plans to establish Mountbatten in Eastern
Australia. MacArthur warned the President that both Aus
tralia and the Netherlands would be suspicious of imported
British leadership.

The President replied that he had not the slightest inten
tion of making it possible for the British to take over any part
of the Dutch possessions. '

And then with all the passion of his being MacArthur
reiterated his plea for America not to abandon her pledge to
the Filipinos that we would rescue them and restore their
336

liberties. When he had finished, he bowed to the President
and quietly left the conference.

As he passed around the end chair Admiral Leahy plucked
at his sleeve.

"I'll go along with you, Douglas/' he said in a stage whisper.

When MacArthur flew back to his battlefront that afternoon,
he took with him no positive assurance from the President
that he had escaped the trap set for him. But never again was
the Navy's plan of by-passing Luzon officially referred to, and
MacArthur went ahead with his program to move straight on
north to lower Mindanao.

His was the long view as against those who were concerned
primarily in hurrying along unconditional surrender and gain
ing complete victory at any cost in both the Atlantic and
Pacific wars. Tragic and inevitable were the results of Amer
ica's failure to have a well thought-out and continuing na
tional and global policy.

It was this lack of the long view that was playing such
deadly havoc with American interests in the many important
conferences that had been or were about to be held. Yet not
once had there been a formal request for MacArthur's con
clusions regarding the over-all problems of this Pacific world.
Nor, save here at Pearl Harbor, had he been invited to attend
a single conference anywhere throughout the war.

17

I944-THE MAGIC TOUCH
AT LEYTE

With the President's personal refusal to sanction the Navy
plan to by-pass MacArthur and Luzon, there came an easy

337

worfeing agreement between the actual commanders within the
two great areas to get on with the war. But it was yet to be
seen how much Admiral King personally was willing to aban
don the last of his hopes to make the Japanese war primarily
Navy-controlled.

Certainly King had no idea of slacking off his drives straight
across the Central Pacific. He had a wary eye on Iwo Jima and
then possibly either Okinawa or Formosa. Four months after
the capture of Saipan in July 1944 the new long-range B-sg
bombers were blasting Tokyo, while other groups of these
superb aircraft were being based in Allied fields in lower China.

Kenney had been given control of the igth Air Force from
the South Pacific, in addition to his own 5th Air Force, but
never was he given a single 6-29, which could double the
range and could carry twice the load of his outmoded 6-175.
General "Hap" Arnold was made the exclusive control agent
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for these deadly B-sgs, now being
turned out by the hundreds. This provision made it certain
that MacArthur's Southwest theatre would have none of these
magnificent new weapons, despite their usefulness in covering
the tremendous distances involved. It was a very specific illus
tration of how MacArthur was constantly being starved.

On September 15, 1944, simultaneous landings were made
by the Navy on the Island of Peleliu of the Palau group,
in the southwest corner of Nimitz's Central Pacific Area, and by
MacArthur on the island of Morotai. Morotai is only a little
more than 300 miles south of lower Mindanao. The right flank
of MacArthur's drive on north to the Philippines would now
be secure.

Morotai was the last of a long series of landings that were
made by MacArthur during the isoo-mile advance along the
shores of New Guinea. Below Morotai, some 200,000 Japa
nese troops were now by-passed. There were possibly 20,000
on nearby Halmahera, which was by-passed in favor of Moro
tai.

In preparation for the twin landings on Peleliu and Moro
tai, Kenney's two air forces and the carrier force of Halse/s
great Third Fleet proved once again the importance of taking
out not only the enemy air on and near the actual landingf
338

but all air within 500 miles of the beaches which were to be
assaulted. There were 250 Japanese planes on Halmahera,
close to Morotai, and these were destroyed or driven off, and
the fields on Mindanao and all threatening enemy bases were
bombed to their death.

As a consequence, MacArthur, now aboard the cruiser Nash
ville, could see his men wading ashore standing up, with a re
sultant casualty list of only 44 Americans. The Navy, however,
had been less fortunate on Peleliu, where the ist Marine Di
vision and the 8ist Army Division eventually killed and buried
11,968 enemy troops and captured 468, but the American
losses were 1,097 killed, 242 missing and 6,792 wounded.

Shortly after the first waves hit the shores at Morotai, Mac-
Arthur made a talk to the men on the beachhead. It was writ
ten down at the time and later given out as a formal statement,
containing the essence of his thoughts about the war and the
fate that awaited Japan. It was obvious that he was already
thinking deeply on the post-war problems that would face
both Japan and her victors. His words to his troops were:

Our position here is now secure and the immediate operation
has achieved its purpose. We now dominate the Moluccas. I
rejoice that it has been done with so little loss. Our campaign
is entering upon its decisive stage. Jap ground troops still fight
with the greatest tenacity. The military quality of the rank and
file remains of the highest. Their officer corps, however, deterio
rates as you go up the scale; it is fundamentally based upon a
caste and feudal system and does not represent strict professional
merit. Therein lies Japan's weakness. Her sons are strong of limb
and stout of heart but weak in leadership. Gripped inexorably
by a military hierarchy, that hierarchy is now failing the nation.
It has neither the imagination nor the foresighted ability to
organize Jap resources for a total war.

Defeat now stares Japan in the face. Its barbaric codes have
dominated Japanese character and culture for centuries and have
practiced a type of national savagery at strange variance with
many basic impulses of the Jap people. Its successful domination
has tfeen based largely on the people's belief in its infallibility.
When public opinion realizes that its generals and admirals have
failed in the field of actual combat and campaign, the revulsion
produced in Japanese thought will be terrific.

339

Therein lies a basis for ultimate hope that the Japanese citizen
will ease his almost idolatrous worship of the military, and re
adjust his thoughts along more rational lines. No sophistry can
disguise the fact from him that the military has failed him in
this, his greatest hour of need. That failure may mark the be
ginning of a new and ultimately happier era for him. His hour
of decision is close at hand.

The spell of war was on MacArthur. Walking along the busy
beachhead, where men and supplies were still pouring ashore,
he stopped now and again to talk to little groups of soldiers.
Later he stood with a few officers and for a long moment he
gazed northward toward the enemy-occupied Philippines.
Deep emotion gripped him as he said in a low voice, as if
speaking only to himself: "They are waiting for me there. It
has been a long time/*

2

Back in the new G.H.Q. at Hollandia, Captain Ray Tarbuck,
U.S.N., assigned to MacArthur as a naval representative, was
detailed to write out the general sea plan for the Philippine
invasion. The original idea of securing bases in Mindanao had
been abandoned because Kenney's air would be too far from
the Manila Bay area and because Nimitz refused to send units
of the great Pacific Fleet into the restricted inland seas. Tar-
buck's orders now were to draw up detailed plans for the naval
side of the invasion of Leyte.

While Tarbuck was busy with this task, a navy flier from
the Central Pacific carrier force, which was engaged in bomb
ing Manila Bay installations, was downed on Leyte as he was
returning to his ship. By luck he landed safely and fell into
the hands of friendly Filipino guerillas, who managed to sig
nal a submarine that returned him to his carrier. His report
that Leyte was lightly held was forwarded by Halsey to Nim
itz, who in turn relayed it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff attending
the Roosevelt-Churchill conference in Quebec. Nimitz added
the suggestion that if the Leyte invasion were to be pushed
forward, he would abandon the invasion of Yap and offer Mac-
340

Arthur the use of a Central Pacific Army Corps now enroute
to Yap. The Joint Chiefs immediately agreed to the suggestion
if MacArthur approved.

The U.S.S. Nashville, with MacArthur on board, was ob
serving radio silence off Morotai, so that the decision had to be
made by the senior staff officers then at the new G.H.Q. at
Hollandia in New Guinea. Kenney happened to be on hand,
and he added his weight to the suggestion by Sutherland and
Steve Chamberlain, chief of the operations section, that the
plan not only be accepted but that the date of the invasion
be advanced from December 20 to October 20. This new
date left only one month and five days to complete new plans.
When MacArthur returned, he was delighted with the decision
and the swift turn of events.

While Tarbuck hurried along his naval plans to meet the
new invasion date he developed an uncanny seafarer's hunch
that the Japanese must soon commit their battle-line or run
the risk of its being bombed out of Singapore or destroyed be
fore the final assault on the home islands. Through various
channels he went about collecting every grain of information
regarding the available enemy warships, their auxiliaries and
their movements. A close track showed a gradual but posi
tive build-up of sea power in the Philippine area, with the
possibility that the enemy was working out a decoy system
that might be termed a "scattered concentration."

While the Japanese fleet was spread over a great area, a care
ful checking showed that the entire fleet could appear simul
taneously in self-supporting task forces at strategic sea chan
nels, where they might first destroy piecemeal elements of the
protecting American sea power or lure them away. They could
then swiftly annihilate the American amphibious force at the
moment it was engaged in the landings and consequently was
utterly powerless to defend itself. Time was to prove the cor
rectness of Tarbuck's imaginative thinking.

General Tomoyoki Yamashita, conqueror of Singapore, was
transferred from a top command in Manchuria to the defense
of the northern Philippine group, including Luzon and Leyte*
But the Army high command seemed to be in no great hurry.
Certainly the Americans would strike first at the Davao area

341

in Mindanao and would not attempt the invasion of Leyte
and Luzon until early December.

It was due to this fatal miscalculation by the Japanese Army
that MacArthur attained complete strategic surprise in his
landings in Leyte Gulf on the morning of October 20 f 1944.
Most of the enemy troops were so completely thrown off bal
ance that they abandoned their forward defense lines, fleeing
to the hills in their rear. The four American divisions moved
swiftly inland, and within ten days all organized resistance in
the rich eastern Leyte Valley was ended, and five airfields
were captured.

Ordinarily the rainy season slackened off before the middle
of October, but in this fall of 1944 Leyte was subject to almost
continual rains. Toward the end of the month one of the
severest typhoons in local history swept westward from the Pa
cific. It set back the American advances and gave the enemy
time to bring in heavy troop reinforcements and to dig in in
the rugged hills and narrow mountainous valleys that lay be
tween the Leyte Valley and the ports and cities to the western
and southern ends of the island.

The five airfields captured during the initial drive were soon
little more than mud flats* Only one was usable, and it could
handle only a few fighters at a time. For once Kenney was
faced with almost complete frustration.

Halsey's great Third Fleet was assigned to provide strategic
support for the landing operations on Leyte Gulf. In plain
wards, his job was to keep his fleet between the Japanese naval
forces and the American landing in Leyte Gulf. On the fourth
day, while the captured airfields were still covered with mud,
the big carriers and swift battleships belonging to the Central
Pacific Command moved north to intercept the Third Japa
nese Fleet, which was believed to be coming down the east
coast of Luzon from its home waters. It was the purpose of this
Japanese Third Fleet to lure Halsey's force away from the
Leyte Gulf area, so that three other Japanese naval forces, mov
ing from the Sulu Sea east through the narrow Straits of
San Bernardino and Surigao could rendezvous off Leyte Gulf
at dawn on October 25. After destroying Kinkaid's covering fleet
the enemy could then annihilate the helpless American sup-
342

ply ships and landing craft that were still at the Leyte landing
beaches. It was a bold and imaginative plan, but fortunately
the keen Captain Tarbuck had called the turn, and Kinkaid
had made the necessary dispositions.

The two southernmost Japanese forces were discovered on
the morning of October 24 by American scouting submarines
and reconnaissance planes, and that same day bombers from
Halsey's flat-tops, now moving north, did some damage to one
of the attacking groups known as the ist Attack Force.

On the night of the 5>4th-25th a small enemy fleet called
the C Force entered the Surigao Strait below Leyte and in the
darkness was knocked off balance by a sudden PT and de
stroyer attack from Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf s force of
cruisers and old battleships of the Seventh Fleet. Completely
surprised, the enemy now faced the concentrated radar-
controlled fire of the American heavy ships, and by dawn the
Japanese had lost two battleships and three of their four de
stroyers, and a heavy cruiser was so damaged that it was later
sunk by carrier planes. History may record that weird mid
night engagement as the last naval battle between surface
fleets where the great battlewagons slugged it out.

A second Japanese naval group, called the snd Attack
Force, immediately followed C Force into Surigao Strait, but
when it saw the disaster that had overwhelmed its sister C
Force, it turned tail and fled. Two of its destroyers were sunk
in the action, and a crippled light cruiser later was finished
off by American land-based bombers. The total loss to Kin-
kaid's Seventh Fleet so far was one destroyer damaged and
one PT boat sunk.

At almost the identical hour that the battle of Surigao
Strait was taking place to the south, the Japanese ist Attack
Force was quietly steaming eastward through San Bernardino
Strait to make its great try at the landings in Tacloban Bay
in Leyte Gulf. Halsey, unaware of the new twin threats, had
already sent his great fleet north to meet the Japanese naval
force sent south to decoy him away from the waters where Japan
would make her desperate efforts to get at the American land
ings.

Despite the loss of the mighty Musashiy the Jap ist Attack

345

Force succeeded in passing through the San Bernardino Strait
which Halsey was supposed to defend with his own swift new
battleship. His critics point out that while he was fully justi
fied in sending his great carriers and their escorts on north
to meet the Japanese force moving southward, he should have
planted his battlewagons here in San Bernardino Strait
between lower Luzon and upper Samar. Halsey's air previously
had trailed this force through the inland seas and bombed it
heavily. In fact it was largely his crippling of the mighty
Musashi with her 1 8-inch guns that led him to believe that
this particular enemy force could no longer sortie into the Pa
cific through the San Bernardino Strait.

But Halsey's subsequent move northward opened the San
Bernardino door into the Pacific to this Japanese ist Attack
Force, which swiftly passed through the Strait and then
steamed south along the eastern shore of Samar and headed
for Leyte Gulf and its deadly rendezvous with the snd At
tack Force and C Force — with the vast American amphibious
fleet lying helpless between them. This ist Attack Force was
still completely unaware of the disaster that during the night
had befallen the two task forces of her sister fleets.

At daybreak the Japanese commander was first aware that
he had been rediscovered when American carrier-based recon
naissance planes and then the small escort carriers themselves
came into view. It was about all the naval force that Kinkaid
could muster to oppose this new and terrible threat from the
north. Fortunately the enemy had no carrier planes, but he
boldly moved his sturdy surface ships against the out-gunned
Americans.

Even though the U. S. escort carriers launched their attack
planes, the Japanese managed to sink one light carrier and
two destroyers, and the small American force finally had to
give way before the withering Japanese fire, including that
from the new Yamato, with its nine 1 8-inch guns and a range of
45,000 yards.

Suddenly the Japanese commander, Admiral Kurita, broke
off the attack and turned back north toward San Bernardino
Strait. He had lost three cruisers by air attack, and he was
aware the Japanese C Force to the south had met disaster. An
344

interception of open radio messages in English brought him
the information that within two hours planes from carrier
units of Halsey's great fleet to the north, now fully awake to
the dangerous situation and steaming full speed to help in his
destruction, would be attacking him.

Under the protection of darkness Admiral Kurita re-entered
San Bernardino Strait and sped westward toward the protec
tion of his home bases. Thanks to Tarbuck's planning and
Kinkaid's alert seamen the desperate plan to sink Kinkaid's
fleet piecemeal and then destroy the helpless armada of supply
ships and landing boats at the beachheads had gone awry.
But the margin of safety had been a narrow one.

On to the north off Cape Engano in Luzon, where Halsey
had been lured by the Japanese Third Fleet, the victory of
the American carriers over the Japanese had been almost
complete. In the nine-hour over-the-horizon engagement Hal-
sey's air sank four carriers — almost completely devoid of planes
— one light cruiser and three destroyers. None of Halsey's great
battlewagons fired a shot, yet only two enemy battleships, two
light cruisers and six destroyers, all damaged, escaped to the
north.

MacArthur's post-war reactions as to the respects in which the
absence of a unified command in the Pacific impaired the ef
fectiveness of the American operations against the Japanese
were frank and clear-cut:

Of all the faulty decisions of the war perhaps the most unex-
plainable one was the failure to unify the command in the
Pacific. The principle involved is perhaps the most fundamental
one in the doctrine and tradition of command. In this instance
it did not involve an international problem. It was accepted and
entirely successful in the other great theatres. The failure to do
so in the Pacific cannot be defended in logic, in theory or even
in common sense. Other motives must be ascribed. It resulted
in divided effort, the waste of diffusion and duplication of force
and the consequent extension of the war with added casualties
and cost. The generally excellent cooperation between the two
commands in the Pacific supported by the good will, good nature

345

DHILI P PINES

The vital naval battle that saved Leyte Gulf.

and high professional qualifications of the numerous personnel
involved, was no substitute for the essential unity of direction of
centralized authority. The handicaps and hazards unnecessarily
resulting were numerous indeed, but by way of illustration I
will elucidate the one which produced the greatest jeopardy. It
developed in the course of the Leyte landing.

346

After Morotai, my next jump was tentatively to seize the islands
off Davao Bay, to base our air to cover the following objective
which was Leyte. It was necessary to make this intermediate move
because of the approximately goo-mile limit of air coverage. Any
landing had to be within covering distance of our previous bases,
as it would take time to build or secure new bases and make them
operative. Until this was done our beachheads were entirely de
pendent for air protection from the rear bases. This was the
determining factor in each move of the envelopment — the so-
called "hit-'em-where-they-ain't" and "leave-'em-die-on-the-vine"
maneuver. It was based upon the concept of cutting in behind
the enemy's bastions and severing his supply lines. The high
command after Morotai expressed the desire to speed up opera
tions in the belief that Leyte was lightly held, a report somewhat
confirmed by naval air reconnaissance but which later proved
not entirely accurate. It was suggested that if I moved direct on
Leyte, naval air would cover me in landing, and sixteen little
"flat-tops" would stay to cover the command until we could build
local air fields and bring forward our own ground air. The hop
was double the usual distance and violated my basic concept
never to risk having my ground forces uncovered from ground-
based air. Under the conditions, however, I decided on the move
ment.

His comment continued in the same reserved and concise
manner. While he was Commander-in-Chief within his own
Southwest Pacific theatre, Halsey's Fleet and all naval support
from the Central and South Pacific areas were distinctly without
his jurisdiction. He had absolutely no authority over them.
Once again he was faced with the deadly consequences of a
divided command. His quoted remarks of the action were made
eight years after the great battle had ended and any personal
bitterness had long ago disappeared. He went on:

I believe this was probably the first time a ground commander
ever placed his complete trust so absolutely in naval hands. The
yth Fleet was reinforced with the old battleships and the little
carriers, and Halsey's fleet containing the new battleships and
big carriers under Nimitz's command was ordered to operate in
the same general waters to the north. I was on the cruiser Nash
ville accompanying our convoys. It early became evident to me

347

that Halsey was too far to the north to properly cover the Gulf
of Leyte, and I so radioed Nimitz asking him to drop Halsey
back. This would not only insure my base but would insure that
Ms fleet being in the action as the magnetic attraction of my
point of landing would draw the enemy's fleet there. Three times
as I remember I sent such dispatches but without result. Nimitz
repeated to Halsey apparently without getting through and then
finally authorized me to communicate directly with Halsey but
it was then too late. In the meantime, the enemy's forces acted
with great skill and cunning. A decoy drew Halsey further to
the north, the Japanese attacked from the south in the Mindanao
Sea and drew our battleships and cruisers there to match his
force and then, evading our air reconnaissance, came through
the San Bernardino Straits and moved on our base and rear
naval echelons in the Bay of Tacloban.

Probably two hundred or more vessels were there exposed.
We instantly threw in our little flat-tops which gallantly and
successfully repulsed the attacking Japanese force. In doing so,
however, the planes were practically destroyed and my potential
air umbrella to protect my ground forces and operations disap
peared. For the following month I was thereby in gravest danger,
as the Japanese under General Yamashita regarded this as the
crucial point of action. Actually, with the failure to hold the
so-called "Yamashita Line," which collapsed with our Ormoc
envelopment, the Emperor afterward told me, the Japanese ad
mitted defeat and all their efforts were to accomplish an end
without internal explosion. Leyte came out all right but the
hazards would all have been avoided by unity of command.

Early in the afternoon of Leyte's D-Day, October 20, General
MacArthur with President Osinena and Brigadier General
Carlos Romulo, Generals Krueger, Sutherland, Kenney and a
little group climbed down from the cruiser Nashville to a land
ing barge and in the choppy sea headed for the beaches. It
was the hour MacArthur had been dreaming of for two years,
seven months and three days.

That afternoon he hurriedly issued a proclamation and
48 hours later, when the ist Cavalry Division captured Tac
loban, he broadcast the words written out under deep emo-
348

these historic islands. The proclamation read:

To the People of the Philippines:

I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand
again on Philippine soil — soil consecrated by the blood of our
two peoples. We have come, dedicated and committed, to the task
of destroying every vestige of enemy control over your daily lives,
and of restoring, upon a foundation of your indestructible
strength, the liberties of your people.

At my side is your President Sergio Osmeiia, worthy successor
of that great patriot, Manuel Quez6n, with members of his
cabinet. The seat of your government is now therefore firmly
reestablished on Philippine soil.

The hour of your redemption is here. Your patriots have dem
onstrated an unswerving and resolute devotion to the principles
of freedom that challenges the best that is written on the pages
of human history. I now call upon your supreme effort that the
enemy may know from the temper of an aroused and outraged
people within, that he has a force there to contend with, no less
violent than is the force committed from without.

Rally to me! Let the indomitable spirit of Bataan and Cor-
regidor lead on. As the lines of battle roll forward to bring you
within the zone of operations, rise and strike! Strike at every
favorable opportunity. For your homes and hearths, strike! For
future generations of your sons and daughters, strike. In the
name of your sacred dead, strike. Let no heart be faint. Let every
arm be steeled. The guidance of divine God points the way.
Follow in His name to the Holy Grail of righteous victory.

Time gives a certain unreality to the old-fashioned elo
quence, but General MacArthur knew the deeply religious na
ture of the people he was addressing and what this day of
national redemption meant to them.

For the first ten days or two weeks of the Leyte campaign, the
24th, g6th and 7th Infantry Divisions and the ist Cavalry
Division met no heavy opposition, and by November 7 they
had reached the mountains and rugged hills that skirted the
eastern fringe of the Central Leyte Valley. The Japanese High

349

Command had rushed parts of two divisions from Mindanao,
Cebu and Panay, and it was evident that they intended to
make the defense of Leyte the decisive action of the Philip
pine defense.

The unusual rainy weather persisted, and until well into
November the only usable airfield was the one near Tacloban.
Hardly more than a score of Kenney's fighters could operate
from it at a time.

The great carriers of Vice Admiral John S. McCain's Task
Force 38 of Halsey's Third Fleet continued now and again
to blast at Manila and Luzon bases, while Kinkaid's little es
cort carriers gave some air protection nearer at home. Then
suddenly a new and deadly menace presented itself — the Japa
nese suicide plane. Never before had it been tried out as a
distinct and formal tactical weapon. During November alone
150 kamakaze sorties were flown, and serious damage was done
to several American ships. It disclosed the desperate nature of
Japanese determination and what might be expected in the fu
ture as American forces neared the Japanese homeland.

By Christmas General Walter Krueger's dogged Sixth Army
had control of all the ports and main cities and highways, and
the following day MacArthur issued a report that the Leyte
campaign, save for mopping-up operations, could be consid
ered ended. The task of cleaning up the heavy fortified pock
ets of Japanese, still in the hills and narrow valleys, was now
in the capable hands of Lt. General Eichelberger and his re
cently organized Eighth Army.

In the two months and six days that had elapsed since
Krueger's forces landed in Leyte, the enemy's counted dead
totalled 56,263, the captured 359. The victory cost the Sixth
Army 2,888 killed, 9,858 wounded and 161 missing. For each
American casualty the Japanese had paid 4.1/2 men.

There was still no letup in the mass suicide charges of the
enemy or in his refusal to surrender until the last man was
killed. It took several months more for Eichelberger's men to
finish up the job. G.H.Q. estimated that probably not more
than 6,000 Japanese were left on the island that Christmas
Day when the Eighth Army took over. When Eichelberger
had finished his distasteful job he accounted for 24,294
350

counted dead and 4.39 missing Japanese in Leyte and neighbor
ing Samar alone. His own losses were 432 killed, 22 miss
ing and 1,852 wounded.

In mid-February the three divisions of the borrowed XXIV
Corps were removed from Eighth Army control and sent to
rest-areas in eastern Leyte, in preparation for the coming Oki
nawa campaign under the Navy's command. There seemed
to be no limit to the lavish stores put ashore for their re-fitting.
The old jungle fighters of the Southwest Pacific had never
seen such magnificence. From top to bottom the men of the
visiting divisions were being issued brand-new clothing,
equipment, guns, cannon, jeeps, trucks and tanks.

Yet never once in all the history of the Southwest theatre
had a single full division of MacArthur's forces been com
pletely re-equipped at one time. Even now the left-behind
cast-offs of this borrowed XXIV Corps had to be salvaged and
used to help equip some of the divisions of the new Eighth
Army for the desperate campaigns that lay ahead.

Almost ten years later Admiral Ray Tarbuck, the regular
naval officer long attached to MacArthur's staff, described with
out the slightest restraint how the Southwest Pacific had suf
fered from the very beginning of the war from a deliberate
policy of discrimination by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
Navy itself. His account began:

One word about MacArthur's supplies. We got the minimum
sustenance for modern war. On trips back to Washington I saw
P-38s in great numbers on each coast as part of the home inter-
cepter force. In New Guinea we were fighting Zeros with P-4OS
that were post-dated. In the 7th Amphibious Force we manu
factured our own rocket launchers and converted our own LCIs
to rocket ships. No Navy Yard for us. We made 56 combat am
phibious landings, all successful, and were without carrier avail
ability on 45 of them. We had seaborne air support on only 11.
We got our blankets and mutton from Australia. We not only
got what Europe couldn't use, but we got the leavings of the
Trans-Pacific. The Central Pacific Navy had numberless supply
ships, reefers and tankers, but the yth Fleet rarely saw any, be
cause some one drew a pencil line on a Pacific chart and said,
"The Central Pacific Area ends here." The battle between the
Army and the Navy was almost as tough as the Jap War.

351

In a very definite way this statement furnishes at least part
of the answer to the disturbing question as to why it has so
often been alleged that General MacArthur failed to capture
the personal loyalty and affection of many of the men who
served under him.

He and his Southwest Pacific were continuously handicapped
by the designs and studied interferences of Washington, from
the White House to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was constantly
forced to pay the price for his opposition to the dreary mis
takes, the endless jealousies, discriminations and bickerings
of rival services, administration politicians and unfriendly
brass. He could do little for the relief and comfort of his sol
diers and airmen and sailors fighting in the deadly jungles
and seas of New Guinea and neighboring islands.

Marines and army personnel attached to the South and
Central Pacific under the Navy's command had the first and
often the only call on rest camps, recreational areas, extra sup
plies, food and relief. Tens of thousands of MacArthur's men
in the Southwest Pacific actually served as much as 18 months
without a break in malarial and disease-infected tropical areas
with no relief, simply because neither the Navy nor the ad
ministration would grant the ships to transport MacArthur's
weary and battle-worn troops to pleasant rest areas. Again and
again the Southwest was at the very tail-end of supply lines
and relief.

Homesick, unhappy men, conscious of being by-passed, nat
urally blamed their commanding general for their neglect.
MacArthur swiftly became the target of their censure for the
conscienceless and deliberate restrictions put on him by rival
services and by the office of the Army's Chief of Staff.

It was clear to MacArthur that the work of defeating the
235,000 Japanese soldiers estimated to be on Luzon should be
assigned to his Sixth Army and its commander Lt. General
Walter Krueger. Krueger would have the help of part of
Eichelberger's smart Eighth Army until Manila was captured,
352

and then MacArthur would divide the entire Philippine ar
chipelago into two areas: Luzon would comprise the Northern
Area, while all the islands to the south would constitute the
Southern Area and would be placed under Eichelberger.

The Central Pacific carrier-based planes and the bombard
ment groups from the American bases on the China mainland,
along with planes from the South and Southwest Pacific, be
gan bombing the 70 airfields on Luzon. At the same time there
were air strikes against enemy fields and bases as far away
as Formosa and Okinawa and even the Japanese home islands.
The daring Halsey raided the upper China Sea with his Third
Fleet, and his carrier-based planes combed the area for tar
gets.

MacArthur still was not satisfied until every enemy air as
sault potential was covered. Less than 200 miles southwest of
Manila and a little west of southern Luzon lay the island of
Mindoro. MacArthur now ordered this island seized and air
fields quickly constructed that could give him additional air
coverage in his final attack on Luzon.

Within MacArthur's own staff there was almost unanimous
agreement in favor of postponing the attack date of Janu
ary 9, 1945, which had been set for the initial landings on
Lingayen Gulf, no miles to the north of Manila. MacArthur
would not agree. Nor would he be swerved by a Navy demand
that the invasion route be up the east coast of Luzon, around
its northern tip and then down its western shores to Lingayen
Gulf. The shorter way was south from Leyte Gulf through
Surigao Strait and across the inland Philippine seas to the South
China Sea. Then the route lay straight north to the invasion
beaches of Lingayen Gulf. Since Halsey refused to risk the
ships of his great Third Fleet in the dangerous coastal waters,
MacArthur would now have to undertake this without any pro
tective help from the Central Pacific Fleet. He would be on
his own.

Once MacArthur's seaborne forces reached the landing
beaches in Lingayen Gulf, then Halsey's great Third Fleet
would guard them against any sea or air force attacking from
the north, but his would still be an independent command,
operating completely outside MacArthur's authority.

353

On December 15 MacArthur was made a 5-8 tar general of the
army, along with Marshall, Eisenhower and Arnold. Marshall's
appointment was first by a matter of hours and carried sen
iority, and MacArthur ranked second in the top level grade.
At the same time Admirals Leahy, King and Nimitz were made
admirals of the fleet.

In no way did this settle the old and bitter controversy
over unity of command in the Pacific, nor did it lessen the
steady and determined opposition to MacArthur in Washing
ton. He was definitely an outsider, denied the full knowledge
of the secret settlements that had been made or were about to
be made among Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin in the series
of global conferences. To only one, Cairo, was the stubborn
and valiant fighter-leader Chiang Kai-shek asked to attend.
MacArthur was not even invited to this Cairo meeting, where
vital decisions regarding China and the Pacific were discussed.
It had seemed fit, however, to ask the possibly overrated
Lord Mountbatten to fly in from the Burma campaign in
which he was hopelessly floundering.

The war against Hitler was obviously about to end. From
early in 1940 fear and hate of the Nazi had absorbed most of
the attention of the Roosevelt administration, and by 1943,
when victory was almost certain, the dangerous desire for re
venge on Germany began to blur the picture of a firm and
lasting peace.

From now on hate and revenge dominated the final actions
of both Roosevelt and Churchill. Their struggle for complete
war victory apparently had used up their energies, so that
they had little heart or imagination left to see to it that their
war success was translated into lasting peace.

MacArthur, fighting his brilliant campaigns at the other side
of the world, was left out of the inner circle and confined to
concern for swift Philippine liberation and to his belief in the
significance of the Western Pacific in the long years ahead.
Shortly before he was made a general of the army he talked
off the record to a group of correspondents who gathered
354

on the porch of the former Japanese Club at Tacloban, Leyte,
which he had taken over as his quarters. He was seriously wor
ried over the deterioration of the Chinese situation and over
the general failure of Washington to understand the great im
portance of the Pacific in the long view. He felt that neg
lecting the war against Japan in favor of the demand that
Germany first be utterly crushed was a tragic mistake.

He explained to his listeners his belief that much of the
future destiny of the human race lay in the lands adjoining
the Pacific. "The history of the world for the next thou
sand years will be written in the Pacific," he prophesied.

Japan, he was sure, had long understood this, and it had be
come the logical basis for her doctrine before the war of the
Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japan had seen that if she
could establish domination over China, she was in a good po
sition to control the Eastern world.

He pointed out that from his point of view Stalin, too,
clearly saw the historic importance of the Pacific, and even
while the Red dictator fought so desperately for survival in
Europe, he was actually looking over his shoulder toward
Asia. If Chiang Kai-shek was to be crushed, MacArthur
argued that China would be thrown into confusion and her
existence as a nation of the free world imperiled.

Communist Russia, he insisted, would sooner or later try
to reverse the results of the Russo-Japanese War of 1964-5.
She still dreamed of recovering Port Arthur, thus securing a
warm-water port into the Pacific, and, as well, regaining her
lost toe-hold in Manchuria.

It was several weeks before the Yalta Agreement, with its
secret clauses, was signed. Months would slip by before Mac-
Arthur was told the details of the bargain Stalin made at
Yalta, when the Russian dictator agreed to become a member
of the planned United Nations and enter the war against Ja
pan within three months after a victory over Hitler. For these
doubtful pledges Roosevelt and his advisors, with Churchill's
consent, promised the Communist leader the recovery of all
that the Czar had lost in Manchuria 40 years before, It was
fondly hoped that Chiang Kai-shek could be forced to accept

355

this Roosevelt-Churchill bartering of his own lands for the re
covery of which he had been fighting the Japanese for seven
straight years.

Since his first voyage of discovery into India and the Far
East in 1905-6, MacArthur realized that some day destiny
would force America to take her rightful place in the vast
struggle for power that was slowly developing in the Western
Pacific. He had never for a day forgotten the prophecy of
the brilliant young Senator Beveridge: "The power that rules
the Pacific ... is the power that rules the world/'

MacArthur knew, too, that to the modern Kremlin mind a
Russian-dominated Communist China was of supreme impor
tance in her plan to absorb all Asia into her Red sphere. It
had long been a Moscow theory that the shortest road to Paris
and London ran through Peiping and Delhi.

18

1945: LUZON-THE BRILLIANT
CAMPAIGN OF LIBERATION

The very act of setting foot on the shores of Leyte on October
20, 1944, fulfilled MacArthur 's vow, "I shall return." But he
still looked forward to the moment when he could announce
to the world that he had wiped out the American humiliation
of Bataan and Corregidor, and that Manila with its thousands
of starving prisoners was liberated.

It was almost two and a half years since he had first taken
the offensive in the green and deadly swamps and jungles pro
tecting the tiny Japanese strongholds of Buna and Gona on the
upper coast of the Papuan end of New Guinea. Then he had
356

had little compared with his present three-dimensional force,
now poised to spring on the great prize of Luzon. In a way it
was the last of the mighty roadblocks barring his way north
ward to the home islands of Japan. He believed implicitly
that Luzon was the key to the ultimate defeat of Japan.

With few exceptions the senior members of his staff were
the same men who checked and then turned back the Japanese
from their southern drive toward Australia, thus protecting
the lines of communication with America. Kenney, with his
5th Air Force, and Kinkaid with his enlarged Seventh Fleet
were still his strong right and left arms. His experienced and
ample Sixth Army remained under the same tough old Walter
Krueger, who drove his own staff like a Prussian army group
commander. MacArthur's new Eighth Army had the decidedly
more versatile Bob Eichelberger as its inspirational spear
head.

But competent as were the planners at G.H.Q. and on the
staffs of his two armies and the sea and air forces, it was the
Old Man himself who really initiated the course of the stra
tegic moves and passed on them during their various stages of
development. The chief of staff at G.H.Q., for instance,
might order certain future plans drawn up and presented to
the Commander-in-Chief. MacArthur would listen quietly
while the presentation was being made on the map. Then
with uncanny skill he would point out the weak points. At
times he would even demand an entirely new objective, be
cause the one suggested might prove too costly in human lives.

Always he completely dominated the situation. The imagina
tive and tireless George Kenney had "more ideas than a dog
has fleas" — as some ardent member of the staff said — and he
sold many of them to his Chief. But the final decision with
its priceless element of split-second timing and the perfection
and precision of the entire operation always bore the personal
hallmark of MacArthur.

Above all else was his intense aversion to frontal attacks, and
his determination to save the lives of his own forces. Always he
would find another way out when he was convinced that a
given operation would cost more casualties than seemed abso
lutely necessary.

357

The series of naval battles that were fought to protect
the supply fleet in Leyte Bay on the fourth and fifth days after
the initial landings there, had destroyed the last of the real
striking power of the Japanese Navy. In order to assist in the
planning of the Luzon campaign for early January of 1945,
Nimitz willingly flew to Leyte for a conference and assured
MacArthur that Halsey's roving Third Fleet would clean out
the South China Sea and thus eliminate all fear of an enemy sea
force barging into his delicate landing operations at Lingayen
Gulf. MacArthur now needed only the same guarantee regard
ing enemy air attacks.

During the final three months of 1944, while the air pre
liminaries and the subsequent heavy fighting were going on in
Leyte, most of the enemy air potential in the Philippines had
been destroyed. A total of 120 scattered air bases had suf
fered the full treatment, including 70 bases on Luzon alone.
With January 9 set by MacArthur as D-Day — although actually
called S-Day, and J-hour for this particular operation — there
came a plastering of enemy air that blanketed every known
drome for roughly 1,000 miles in all directions.

Although Kenney was never to have a single B-sg under
him, the new XXI Bomber Command sent its Superfortresses
from Saipan and the other fields in the Marianas to the Japa
nese home islands; the combined China-based XX Bomber
Command and the Fourteenth Air Force pounded at targets
in Formosa and along the China coast; and Kenney's newly
organized Far East air forces smothered local Philippine and
Dutch East Indies targets. MacArthur's precaution to establish
air fields in Mindoro, 200 miles southwest of Manila, helped
to neutralize the fields on Luzon and to protect the invasion
fleets as they moved through the dangerous inland sea and pas
sageways to Lingayen Gulf.

MacArthur's over-all strategic plan for the conquest of
Luzon appears simple in the telling. For weeks before the ac
tual landings the airfields on the long, narrow island were
methodically bombed, and beginning January i, 1945, decep
tive measures were initiated against fake landing spots in the
Bicol and Batangas areas of lower Luzon. Channels and harbors
were swept of mines, and deceptive preliminary landing oper-
358

ations were started. There were even dummy parachute drops,
and every evidence was planted for an invasion o£ lower Lu
zon.

The advance warships of the Luzon attack force left their
anchorage in Leyte Gulf on January 2. As the fleet made its
way through the dangerous narrow waters, the enemy brought
out his hidden aircraft and Cebu-based submarines and at
tacked. A suicide plane sank an escort carrier, and much dam-
mage was done to a number of vessels. Admiral "Uncle Dan"
Barbey's escort sank a Japanese destroyer which attacked out
of Manila Bay as the convoy passed Corregidor. On January 6
advance elements of the fleet reached Lingayen Gulf, harassed
constantly by reckless air attacks of the enemy. MacArthur was
urged to postpone the landings scheduled for the gth, but his
answer was to request Halsey's big carriers to help with the
neutralization of the Luzon airfields. It was a touch-and-go
decision he had to make.

The Japanese apparently had shot their bolt, and by Janu
ary 8 the air offensive was limited to a few suicide missions.
American warships and planes could now concentrate on the
shore bombardment, in preparation for the actual landings
the following day. All but 3 of the 30 American vessels put out
of commission were sunk or damaged by suicide planes.

At 7:00 in the morning of January 9 the fire-support ships
opened up on the Lingayen landing beaches, and then the na
val gunfire lifted to the enemy targets in the rear. At 9:30,
when the first assault waves hit the beaches, they were met by
little opposition, save against the 43rd Division, which landed at
the northern end of invasion shore line. Amphtracs rapidly
pushed inland across rice paddies, fish ponds and swamps. Men,
ammunition, bulldozers, artillery and supplies of every kind
poured out on the beaches, and by nightfall 68,000 troops from
the 6th and 43rd Divisions of Swift's I Corps and from the
4oth and 37th Divisions of Griswold's XIV Corps were planted
on a quarter-moon-shaped beachhead, 17 miles long and
4 miles deep.

The Central Plain of Luzon, with Lingayen Gulf at its
northern end, runs southeastward between rugged mountain
chains for a little more than a hundred miles. The plain is 30

359

or 40 miles wide; about 15 miles above Manila it is pinched
off into a bottleneck between swamps, then widens out again
as it approaches the capital city.

The rugged Caraballo mountains form the northeastern edge
of this wide valley, and further on these stubborn mountains
lose themselves in the great Sierra Madre range, which runs
along the east side of the broad plain and extends south far be
low Manila. To the west lie the Zambales mountains, with
Fort Stotsenburg and Clark Field nestling in the foothills, half
way down from Lingayen Gulf.

MacArthur's general plan was to drive swiftly down this
Central Plain, and at the same time push the enemy back
into the mountains to the northeast and on both east and
west flanks. General Yamashita, thrown off balance and handi
capped by the loss of his air, had chosen not to oppose the
American landings on the beaches, although he had nearby a
force of 36,000 men that could have counterattacked during
the confusion of that first evening. By the time he realized
the weight of the American forces, which on the initial day
advanced 4 miles inland from the beaches and were occupying
well-placed and powerful defensive positions, it was too late
for him to re-organize his plans.

MacArthur came ashore early on the morning of the land
ings and after spending most of the day on the beaches, re
turned to his cruiser for the night. The following day, while
Krtieger's men drove down the Central Valley and against the
Japanese pockets close to the mountains, MacArthur located
his advance headquarters in an abandoned schoolhouse in the
village of Santa Barbara.

From the start there was heavy fighting directly north of the
beachhead, and to the east and northeast formidable cave de
fense-systems were encountered. General I. P. Swift, I Corps
commander, immediately had his Corps reserve brought ashore,
and the 25th Division belonging to the reserve of Griswold's
XIV Corps also was landed in Swift's zone.

To the right or west of the Central Valley, Griswold's XIV
Corps was meeting much less opposition. Quickly it seized the
airfields outside the town of Lingayen, then crossed the Agno
river and drove on south along the slopes of the Zambales
360

mountains. Within ten days after landing, the 4Oth Division
had pushed more than 50 miles to the southward, and the 37th
Division, on its left, had advanced in line.

In the meanwhile Swift's I Corps was encountering the stiff-
est sort o£ fighting as it drove eastward and northeastward
against the line of Japanese caves and dugouts in the foothills
of the Caraballos. It was evident that the Japanese were fight
ing a purely defensive war, and that they would not com
promise on their old no-surrender suicide tactics. With
communication tunnels dug between their hillside caves and
deep trenches, and with ample supplies of ammunition and
food, they were fighting the type of war that best suited their
fanatical bravery.

At dawn each day MacArthur and one or two of his staff
would take off in an ordinary jeep to the spot where some ad
vancing American unit was being held up. His headquarters in
the schoolhouse at Santa Barbara was tentative. Actual plans
for the running battles were drawn at the headquarters of
Krueger's Sixth Army, and while MacArthur did not care to
interfere in the tactical orders, he could not contain his restless
insistence that the tempo of the attacks be increased.

There was no pity in his heart for this enemy who had
slaughtered his men on the Bataan death march, had broken
every rule of modern war and had committed tens of thou
sands of atrocities. He was ruthless and calculating, but com
passionate and careful for his own people. He wanted from his
commanders neither excuses nor heavy casualty lists. Count
the enemy dead and give him the figures!

Krueger, experienced soldier as he was, often exasperated
MacArthur with his overcaution. Constantly the Sixth Army
commander protested that he must not neglect his flanks or
overextend his lines of communication. He must take no
chances. He must play it safe.

But it was not overcaution that MacArthur wanted. What
he demanded now was speed, attack, surprise, power, daring,
valor — and all tied into as much air support as Kenney could
give him. He had the enemy off balance, and he proposed to
keep him that way.

The wars he had fought or had studied until they were al-

361

most a part of his being now gave him a sense of battle
conflict so sound and secure that it bordered on intuition. An
intense sense of reality seemed to join with a sixth sense in a
dynamic will-to-win that could not fail to inspire the com
manders who came under the intensity of his leadership. The
very sight of the calm figure, quietly encouraging and directing
the actual leaders in the field, somehow counterbalanced Krue-
ger's discretion and demand for more caution and security.

A bombed and abandoned sugar central was located a few
miles from Clark Field, now within the American lines. Here,
at Hacienda Lucita, MacArthur established his temporary head
quarters. Krueger's Sixth Army H.Q. lay thirty miles or so
behind him.

Several times previously he had quietly urged Krueger to
drive harder and move faster. Finally he sent the message by
one of his most trusted staff officers, explaining to him that if
he, MacArthur, personally went again he was certain he would
finally lose his temper and relieve this old comrade, who shared
his birthday and was but a year his junior in age. He could not
quite do that. But he could send word to his plans and opera
tions officer to turn up the tempo.

[When MacArthur was questioned years later how soon
after the Lingayen landing he had hoped to secure the Central
Plain and the Manila Bay area, he answered:

There was no fixed timetable. I hoped to proceed as rapidly
as possible especially as time was an element connected with the
release of our prisoners. I have always felt, however, that to en
deavor to formulate in advance details of a campaign is hazardous
as it tends to warp the judgment of a commander when faced
with unexpected conditions brought about by the uncertainties
of enemy reaction or initiative. I therefore never attempted fixed
dates for anything but the start of operations. The rate of prog
ress in this operation was fast and more than fulfilled all hopes
and expectations. The only place the enemy could hope to
counterattack successfully, except locally on the battle line, was
at Lingayen itself to cut my line of supply. My beachhead and
harbor base were exposed to attack from Formosa and the north.
The yth Fleet had been reinforced from the Central Pacific by
battle ships with accessories and as long as these defended the
362

Lingayen roadsteads my naval supply line was secure. Admiral
Nimitz was preparing for the Okinawa attack, however, and
felt these ships must be recalled as soon as possible. I then threw
the XI Corps, under General Hall, by sea to the Zambales Coast
so that if Lingayen in its weakened naval state became jeopard
ized I could shift my supply line to a more secure geographical
position. The movement also placed Hall's forces so as to threaten
the flank of the enemy's main line of resistance in the Manila
Plains. No counterattack developed and the enemy's resistance
in the Plains rapidly crumbled when I enveloped the other flank
with the ist Cavalry Division.]

Never for a day since he came ashore had his mind been free
from thoughts of the half-starving and mistreated American
prisoners of war who had served under him on Bataan and Cor-
regidor. The Filipinos who survived the death march had been
paroled, but there had been no such mercy for the Americans.
MacArthur had always felt that these men, with the civilian
American internees, were his special charge. Their rescue lay
like a heavy weight on his heart.

His plan to enter Manila in some swift and almost reckless
drive was based on the certain knowledge that only by sur
prise and great valor could the 3,500 American men, women
and children at Santo Tom£s and another 1,000 held in Bilibid
prison, be saved from some horrible death. The same assump
tion was true for a half-thousand American and Allied prison
ers of war held in a camp in the western foothills of the Sierra
Madre mountains at Pangatian, a few miles northeast of Ca-
banatuan. It was at Cabanatuan that the north-south Highway
5 crossed the Pampanga river, half-way down the eastern side
of the great central valley. This was all Japanese-held coun
try, and only a wild and daring raid had the slightest chance
of succeeding.

MacArthur gave his approval to a bold rescue plan which was
evolved around the capture of this Pangatian camp. A force of
134 picked men from the highly trained 6th Ranger Battalion
was chosen to carry out the desperate mission. Well-supported
by tough Filipino guerilla fighters, the little group worked its

363

way through the enemy territory and shortly after dark
reached the prison camp and launched its surprise attack. The
guards and some 200 enemy troops were killed, at a loss of
only 2 Americans killed and 10 men wounded. Swiftly the
486 American prisoners and their 36 Allied comrades were
brought together and all through that night the sick and ema
ciated men were helped back to liberated territory. At day
break on January 31 they were met by Americans in jeeps and
hurried on to the town of Guimba, where they were received
with open arms and given hot food and medical care.

Early that morning MacArthur went among them, gripping
their hands, patting their shoulders, calling a number of them
by their first names and assuring them all that their worries
were over.

The next mercy mission now became foremost in his mind.

The ist Cavalry Division came ashore January 27, exactly 17
days after the first troops hit the beaches on Lingayen Gulf.
The division's original commander, Major General Swift, now
had I Corps, and its present C. O. was Major General Verne
Mudge, a fearless and experienced leader.

Two days after its landing MacArthur jeeped to Guimba to
talk over with Mudge the idea of cutting loose a flying column
from his division and sending it hell-for-leather the 100 miles
south to Santo Tomds University in Manila, in the hope that
by the very daring of the wild drive he might rescue the 3,500
American internees there. Mudge was enthusiastic.

MacArthur carefully gave his final instructions. Mudge
would be racing through enemy country, but he must disre
gard his own flanks and rely on speed and surprise. He was to
engage in no unnecessary fights and to permit no delays that
could possibly be avoided. Air attack squadrons from the 24th
and 32nd Marine Air Groups, especially trained in close sup
port of ground units, would help protect his flanks and provide
reconnaissance. The rest of the division would follow the
speeding column as fast as it could drive through. No matter
364

what happened, the mercy mission would be sustained, and the
entire Sixth Army would stand by if necessary.

"Get to Manila!" MacArthur concluded. "Go around the
Japs, bounce off the Japs, but get to Manila! Free the internees
at Santo Tomds! Take Malacanan and the Legislative Build
ings!"

Mudge grimly saluted and pledged that he would not sleep
until he entered Manila, He would start at midnight this very
night, February i. To spearhead the loo-mile drive he chose
what amounted to two composite squadrons that included
troopers of field artillery, tank and medical units and a third
outfit consisting of two tank companies and a reconnaissance
troop. They were designated as ist, snd and 3rd serials. Men,
weapons, ammunition, water and four days' rations, with extra
gas drums, were loaded for the headlong dash that would have
delighted the fighting heart of Rommel. Mudge put Brigadier
General Chase in direct charge of the flying column and re
lieved him of his divisional responsibilities.

In the darkness the three columns started across rice paddies,
plowed fields and broken country toward Cabanatuan. Before
daylight 5th Cavalry troopers under Lieutenant Colonel Wil
liam E. Lob it waded and swam the Pampanga river and cap
tured the Valdefuente bridge at the very moment the enemy
was preparing its destruction. Major General Mudge person
ally picked up a handful of troopers and dashed for a cache of
3,000 pounds of dynamite that had been placed on the structure
to be detonated by mortar shells. Under fire and with only a
split-second to spare, Mudge and his men dumped the dyna
mite in the river and saved the bridge. This sort of reckless
valor showed itself in scores of incidents.

Late that second afternoon MacArthur visited a squadron of
the 5th Cavalry that was halted by a broken bridge just north
of Angat below Bulacan. He had faith now that the great
gamble would pay off.

By midnight, 48 hours after the columns had set out on their
magnificent adventure, they had reached a point only 15 miles
from their goal. There was little sleep or rest. The three col
umns often fought individual battles, and they lunged down

365

steep embankments and across streams and around roadblocks
in the face of murderous fire.

By 6:30 on the evening of the third day, the leading ele
ments of the flying column crossed the city line. Luck rode in
the forward trucks of this serial of the 8th Cavalry, as they
rolled by the Chinese Cemetery, two miles within Manila lim
its. Lt. Colonel Haskett L. Connor, Jr., alert and suspicious,
picked up two Filipinos who formerly had been with the Phil
ippine Scouts of the American Army. Darkness had set
tled down, but they offered to show the way to the gates of
Santo Tomds.

At 8:30 this night of February 3 a light tank, the Battling
Basic, belonging to the 44th Tank Battalion, crashed through
the front gate of the University compound. All lights within
the walls had been ordered out, and Japanese guards were fir
ing from their prepared stations.

In a matter of minutes the rest of the American column
pushed inside, overwhelming and killing most of the guards.
Only one group of 63 Japanese soldiers, barricaded in the
well-built Education Building along with 267 American in
ternees held as hostages, escaped the avenging fire. At dawn
on the 5th they were permitted to march out with their weap
ons, after it had been made certain their hostages were un
touched.

Late on that afternoon previous to the rescue, an American
plane buzzed the prison camp, and a number of the internees
saw something drop from the cockpit. Quickly the object
was retrieved; it was a pair of aviator's goggles attached to a
note that read: "Roll out the barrel. Santa Glaus will be com
ing Sunday or Monday. "

It was around 8:30 Sunday night when he actually got there.

It was time now for MacArthur to begin his great double-en
velopment movement which would extend its steel arms
around the entire southwestern quarter of Luzon and close the
trap on Bataan, Manila Bay and Batangas. Thousands of Ya-
366

mashita's confused troops would be crushed to death in the sur
prise sweeps.

The days immediately before Verne Mudge led his flying
column down Highway 5 in its dash for Santo Tomds, Major
General Charles P. Hall's XI Corps made surprise landings on
the west coast above Subic Bay, and in the northwestern cor
ner of Bataan peninsula. The next day the one-time American
naval base of Olongapo fell unopposed to the Americans. The
swiftly moving columns now started their drives eastward
across the twisting dirt trails and enemy roadblocks, to cut off
Bataan from the Zambales mountains and deny it to the be
wildered Japanese. A few days later the i5ist Regimental
Combat Team boarded a swift convoy, which slipped out of
Subic Bay and landed at Mariveles on the lower shore of Ba
taan, only three miles from the grim rock of Corregidor in the
mouth of Manila Bay.

One battalion drove on around the lower point of Bataan,
then straight up the road along the eastern shore. Three days
later it joined up at Limay with the ist Regimental Combat
Team of the 6th Division, which had broken through from the
Central Valley and had then rapidly driven down the east
coast of Bataan. The double envelopment of the woods and
battlegrounds of the peninsula was now complete. Bataan had
fallen 20 days from the time General Hall's forces first
stepped ashore at Subic Bay, and then turned eastward to seal
off the northern entrances into the escape haven.

That same day when the enveloping forces met at Limay on
the Manila Bay side, MacArthur paid his tribute to the men,
Americans and Filipinos alike, who had fought and died here.
There was a ring to his words as he referred to the long-ago
days when his troops had been starved and neglected:

Bataan, with Corregidor the citadel of its integral defense,
made possible all that has happened since. History, I am sure,
will record it as one of the decisive battles of the world. Its long
protracted struggle enabled the united nations to gather strength
to resist in the Pacific. Had it not held out Australia would have
fallen with incalculable disastrous results.

Our triumphs of today belong equally to that dead army. Its

367

heroism and sacrifice have been fully acclaimed but the great
strategic results of that mighty defense are only becoming fully
apparent. The Bataan garrison was destroyed due to its dread
ful handicaps, but no army in history more thoroughly accom
plished its mission. Let no man henceforth speak of it other than
as of magnificent victory.

But there still remained one savage task that was possibly
even closer to MacArthur's heart than had been this recovery
of Bataan. Corregidor must be retaken, but there must be no
reckless expenditures of American life. He studied the plans
for its envelopment until he was satisfied.

A single battalion of the isist Regimental Combat Team
boarded landing craft at Mariveles, crossed the three miles of
open water and fought its way to a beachhead on the lower tip
of the Rock. For three weeks Kenney had been giving Corregi
dor almost around-the-clock bombing, and two hours before
the sea landing was made the 5o$jrd Parachute Regimental
Combat Team was flown up from Mindoro and dropped on the
topside of the once great fortress. Late that afternoon the two
invading American outfits joined up, and by dawn the island
was split into halves.

The garrison, confused and half-senseless from the terrible
bombings and the three-day naval bombardments, took to their
mortar pits and tunnels, and fought on until all but 19 of the
4,516 defenders were killed. It took eleven days and a total of
209 American dead, 19 missing and 725 wounded to wipe out
the bitter score of Corregidor.

Three days later MacArthur crossed from Manila to the
Rock. It seemed almost a religious rite to him. No other spot
in the world held such bitter and lasting memories. The
group that accompanied him, sensing his emotion, drew back,
and he stood alone gazing into the black and unspeakable char-
nelhouse that had been the Middle Tunnel. It had held the
hospital and storerooms and bomb shelters and his own G.H.Q.
In those long-ago days it withstood a half-hundred bombings
and weeks of heavy shell fire. Here he had been forced to suf
fer the anguish and humiliation of leaving his doomed com
rades.

A little later that day he attended the brief ceremonies that
368

formally marked the return to the historic Rock. Finally he
addressed the 34-year-old Colonel George Madison Jones, West
Point '35, whose paratroopers had fought so valiantly along
side their comrades of the infantry battalion that had landed
on the beachhead. The stream of his emotion was running deep:

Colonel Jones:

The capture of Corregidor is one of the most brilliant opera
tions in military history. Outnumbered two to one, your com
mand by its unfaltering courage, its invincible determination
and its professional skill, overcame all obstacles and annihilated
the enemy. I have cited to the order of the day all units involved,
and I take great pride in awarding you as their commander the
Distinguished Service Cross as a symbol of the fortitude, the de
votion and the bravery with which you have fought.

I see the old flagpole still stands. Have your troops hoist the
colors to its peak, and let no enemy ever haul them down.

This classic seizing of Bataan and Corregidor and the clearing
of the entrance to Manila Bay had all been part of the great
upper arm of the enveloping movement whose ultimate mis
sion was the liberation of southern Luzon. Meanwhile a second
arm to the south under Lt. General Eichelberger drove deep
into the heart of Batangas province from a beachhead at Na-
sugbu, 70 miles southwest of Manila. The brilliant nth Air
borne Division advanced 19 miles on foot in the first 28 hours
after it hit the beaches. Ahead of them now rose the high Ta-
gaytau ridge. It blocked the way on to the north and the back
door to Manila.

Eichelberger ordered the entire 5iith Regimental Team,
comprising three parachute battalions and a winged artillery
battalion, to board their air transports at Mindoro Island be
low and to take off. The drop was perfect, and almost as if by
magic Eichelberger now possessed the 2,4go-foot ridge that
commanded the country around it. Far to the north could be
seen the roofs of Manila faintly shimmering in the bright
afternoon sun. The swiftness and surprise of the moves had

369

left the Japanese defenders of the strategic heights helpless and
aghast.

Eichelberger loaded his paratroopers in trucks and pushed
on. Toward evening he ran into heavy fighting at the river
crossing at Imus, but nothing apparently could check for long
the momentum of his advance. That night he and his troops
caught an hour or two of sleep in Paranaque, the entrance gate
to Manila. Here he faced 12,500 Japanese marines guarding
this southern passageway stretching between Manila Bay and
Fort McKmley. Within four days after his initial landings, he
had driven a wedge 69 miles straight into northwestern Ba-
tangas. Finally its fine cutting edge was blunted and turned by
an entrenched enemy that knew how to die but not how to
surrender.

Eichelberger had missed out on the big prize of Manila, but
he had done his level best.

Meanwhile, on the night of February 3, when the special
squadron of the 8th Cavalry drove its steel mounts into Santo
Tomds concentration camp on the north side of Manila, Troop
F was detached from the leading column for a daring attempt
to capture Malacanan Palace on the Pasig river. It succeeded
in taking almost unscathed the beautiful old Spanish dwelling
where General Arthur MacArthur had lived in 1901-2 when
he was the first military governor of the Philippines. There
were several counterattacks by Japanese during the night, but
the troopers held on.

The following day the advance columns of the U. S. gyth
Division fought their way to Bilibid prison, where they liber
ated 1,000 American prisoners and internees. Soon afterward
elements of both divisions crossed the Pasig in their joint mis
sion of enveloping the city. By the nth of the month they
had swung to the southwest through the outskirts and reached
Manila Bay on ahead. One brigade of the ist Cavalry fought
its way to Fort McKmley, then turned east to engage the en
emy in their caves and connecting dugouts in the Sierra Ma-
dre.

MacArthur hoped that the beautiful city of Manila might be
won without being destroyed, but it was not to be. The Jap-
370

anese had fortified public buildings and residences which were
well located for tactical defense. Guns, ammunition and food
were piled into these improvised forts. Here the Japanese made
their suicide stands. Finally the ammunition was exploded and
the buildings set on fire. The blazes spread and in the end al
most four-fifths of this matchless city, the Pearl of the Orient,
was razed to the ground.

On February 7 in the earliest days of the Manila fighting
MacArthur toured the captured prison camps and for hours
roamed among the rejoicing internees, greeting such beloved
old friends as Theo Rogers whom he had known since he was
a lieutenant more than 40 years before. Rogers had been de
fying his jailers for three years and was one of the unsung he
roes of the terrible incarceration. Sniping was still going on
along the University walls, and when MacArthur inspected
Malacanan Palace a little later, there was still indiscriminate
firing.

His troops were now well within the great city, and its
doom was clear. But his thoughts were on the final victory over
Japan as he made a short statement:

The fall of Manila marks the end of one great phase of the
Pacific struggle and sets the stage for another. We shall not rest
until our enemy is completely overthrown. We do not count any
thing done as long as anything remains to be done.

We are well on the way, but Japan itself is our final goal.
With Australia saved, the Philippines liberated and the ultimate
redemption of the East Indies and Malaya thereby made a cer
tainty, our motto becomes "On to Tokyo!" We are ready in this
veteran and proven command when called upon. May God speed
the dayl

Actually there still remained three full weeks of isolated
fighting in Manila, for the Japanese had to be burned or
blasted out of one modern structure after another. Finally the
survivors sealed themselves up within the high stone walls of
the picturesque old Walled City. For days they held out against
artillery and mortars, flame throwers, hand grenades and gaso
line poured through holes in roofs and ceilings and set afire. It
was March 4 before the last fanatical defender was killed.

371

Even after the double relief of Santo Tomds and Bilibid
prison, one more mercy mission remained to be fulfilled before
MacArthur could feel that he had done his full duty to his
old comrades.

On February 3, the very day that the flying column of the ist
Cavalry Division stormed its way into Santo Tomds Univer
sity grounds, MacArthur sent word to Lt. General Eichelberger
in Batangas province that at the earliest moment it was feasi
ble he should attempt the rescue of the 2,000 American and
Allied prisoners of war and civilian internees held in a prison
camp at Los Banos, on the southern shore of Laguna de Bay.
The stockade was 50 miles within the Japanese lines and
across swampy and difficult country.

Eichelberger had just moved up with the men of the 5 nth
Parachute Regiment, who had dropped on the strategic Tagay-
tay Ridge, and were preparing for their dash toward Manila.
A few days later the units he had been leading were trans
ferred to the Sixth Army and he flew back to his Eighth Army
H.Q. in Leyte. He turned over to Major General Joseph M.
Swing and his nth Airborne Division the mission to rescue
the prisoners at Los Bafios.

As leader of the difficult venture Swing chose Colonel Robert
Soule of the i88th Glider Regiment, who had been wounded
at Tagaytay Ridge and had been recommended for promotion
to brigadier general and for a Distinguished Service Cross. In
some ways this Los Bafios mission was even a more desperate
assignment than either of the two previous rescue tasks. Be
sides the regular guards at the camp, there were several thou
sand enemy troops not more than three or four hours' march
from the stockade.

Filipino guerillas, posing as friendly natives, were sent in to
spy out the land. They returned with an American engineer,
Peter Miles, who had recently escaped. He was able to draw
maps of the exact location of the camp and the pill boxes,
sentry posts and defensive measures.

A half-hundred amphtracs that were modernized versions of
the old alligators and buffalos were collected and moved from
372

the Fort McKinley area to Paranaque on Manila Bay below the
city. Nichols Field was now in American hands, and nine 0-473
were brought in and made ready for a company of paratroop
ers.

On February 20 a detachment of 32 Americans and 80 Fili
pino guerillas made their way to the northern shore of Laguna
de Bay and quietly paddled their native bancas to the lower
end of the shallow lake and went into hiding. When nightfall
came, on Washington's birthday, the group slogged on foot for
seven hours across rice paddies and through swamps. Early in
the morning of February 23 they set up columns of phospho
rous smoke as markers for both the paratroopers and the flotilla
of amphtracs, which were loaded with picked men from the
ist Battalion of Soule's own regiment.

The leaders of the three converging outfits might have been
using stop watches, so accurate was their coordinated timing.
While the guerillas suddenly broke in through the gates and
killed the sentries, the amphtracs walloped up the lake shore
and rattled toward the firing. In a matter of minutes the para
troopers dropped from the sky and hurried into their agreed
positions to meet any Japanese countercharge. Soon American
air patrols appeared, ready to help if needed.

Swiftly the helpless litter cases were carried to the amphtracs
and rushed to safety. The shuttle service went into action, and
all the 2,000 prisoners were safely evacuated. Close to 250
Japanese guards were killed, at a total loss of 2 dead and i
wounded American. The internees had a single casualty — one
man slightly wounded.

MacArthur had had no personal share in the exact planning
of this third miracle rescue, but it had his magic touch. Water,
ground and air had all three contributed. To the technique of
the double envelopment was now added the new contribution
of vertical envelopment. In miniature that had been repeated
here all the elements of surprise, speed and force, and the com
plete use of every type of weapon, communication and coordi
nation that MacArthur had mastered.

It was a post-graduate school of war that he had been run
ning these past three years.

373

In Washington the reaction to MacArthur's phrase, ''On to
Tokyo," made in his press release when the heart of Manila
was captured, was resentment against him. Navy spokesmen
quietly put out the word that "MacArthur will go to Japan
only over their dead body." Even the reports now arriving of
the heavy losses on Iwo Jima, fought under over-all Navy com
mand, did not soften the criticism against MacArthur.

On February 10 John Callan O'Laughlin, publisher of the
important Army A* Navy Journal, and MacArthur's devoted
friend, ran an editorial regarding the future invasion of the
Japanese home islands that brought a storm of disapproval. In
part it read:

Reports are current that the plans for the invasion, which
have been approved, contemplate his [MacArthur's] retention
for the clean-up job in the Philippines, and the assignment of
another officer as commander of the invading expedition.

In view of MacArthur's superb leadership, the significant re
sults that have been obtained by purely American forces and the
low number of casualties his men have sustained, it would seem
that there would be no question about his continued leadership
of the military operations to be conducted in the homeland of
the Far Eastern enemy.

No one knows better than MacArthur that without the pro
tection his command and communications have received from
our incomparable fleets, an advance could not have been made
into the Philippines. It follows that his realization of the debt
he is under to the Navy and Fleet Admiral Nimitz's knowledge
that land operations must complete Japan's defeat have facili
tated the closest cooperation between the two commanders, and
that this cooperation would unquestionably continue during the
attack on the enemy's home islands.

And because he knows them thoroughly and has profited by
their use, General MacArthur is the military commander who
should lead our forces into these islands. We hope the President
and the War Department will so announce.

Making one of his regular calls on the Army Chief of Staff,
O'Laughlin found Marshall very much disturbed by the edi-

374

torial. A day or two later in a confidential letter to ex-President
Hoover, O'Laughlin wrote of Marshall's pique:

He spoke of MacArthur as obstinate and ambitious. . . . Ap
parently the only friend in the Navy the General has is Halsey,
who has lauded the General as a great leader . . . Marshall de
clared he would have something to say as to who would be
Supreme Commander in the Far East. He said that there must
be organized for that region another Supreme Headquarters
Allied Expeditionary Force, with British representation as in
Europe. . . . One rumor is that Marshall or King, neither of
whom have led troops nor fleets in battle, may be sent in Supreme
Command. Marshall, a 5-star General, is senior to MacArthur of
the same rank.

On March 14, Lt. General George Kenney arrived in Wash
ington from Manila on a mission from MacArthur to get more
planes. In a long talk with the Chief of Staff he insisted that
Japan had lost her air power, her navy and merchant marine,
and that there was no longer any necessity of holding back
until Germany was defeated or the Russians came in. Marshall
called in several members of his staff and asked Kenney to re
peat his analysis. Marshall countered with the suggestion that
he did not agree with Kenney's arguments that Japan was at
the end of her rope. He insisted she still had a great army and
was full of fight. Likewise, he made it clear that he had little
faith in the Japanese overtures for peace.

Less than a week later Kenney called on President Roose
velt and gave him the same general optimistic picture regard
ing the rapid disintegration of Japan's sea and air power, and
he assured the President that America could invade when and
where she wished. When he was leaving, the President sug
gested that Kenney would probably like to know whether Nim-
itz or MacArthur was to run the invasion. The President's ex
act words that Kenney shortly reported to MacArthur were:
"You might tell Douglas that I expect he will have a lot of
work to do well to the north of the Philippines before very
long."

But whether Roosevelt's memory was short, or he had
merely been indulging in little pleasantries, or the pressure

375

against MacArthur's appointment was suddenly too great for
him to withstand, the fact soon became clear that there was no
substance to the message he had sent through Kenney to Mac-
Arthur, intimating that he was to be supreme commander.

On April 5 the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced a split com
mand in the Pacific, Nimitz to be in charge of all naval forces,
MacArthur to control all army forces.

Seven days later, April 12, the President was dead.

376

PART FOUR

No Substitute
for Victory

1945-1954

19

A SUNDAY MORNING

ON THE BATTLESHIP MISSOURI

While MacArthur was conducting his giant envelopment move
ment on Luzon, there were important developments elsewhere
in the world.

From February 4 to 14, 1945, the Big Three met at Yalta.
Roosevelt, who had been elected for a fourth term only three
months before the conference, was obviously a dying man, and
Churchill likewise had passed the peak of his powers.

Only one of the Big Three, Stalin, still possessed great vigor
and the exact knowledge of what he wanted. Hatred of Hitler
and Germany had worn out the other two, with the additional
tragedy that neither they nor certain of their most trusted ad
visors had a long-range view of what was required for a last
ing peace in Europe. The idea of unconditional surrender and
revenge still largely dominated the American and British lead
ers, with General Marshall apparently obsessed by what he felt
was the need of securing Russian help at any price to bring
about an early war victory over Japan.

379

For some time there had been divided opinion among the
U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding the necessity of an actual
invasion of the Japanese home islands and whether Russia
must be brought into the Pacific war. Marshall and his Army
people in the Pentagon had favored both of these propositions.
On the other hand, since early 1944 Admiral Leahy, the Presi
dent's personal Chief of Staff, had felt that naval and air block
ade coupled with air bombardment could eventually bring Ja
pan to her knees, without actual invasion and without Russia's
entering the Pacific war. Admiral King and his own staff had
been less optimistic. They seemed to favor the idea that Japan
would have to be destroyed before she would surrender, and
that an invasion of the China coast might be necessary. Sixty-six
cities were to be destroyed by bombing, which had already
started. (Later King was to agree to a direct invasion of the
Japanese home islands, without the use of bases on either
Formosa or the China coast, but he still clung to his prejudice
regarding navy domination over the army.)

Within the inner policy-making group of the American del
egation at Yalta was a glib and attractive young man, who bore
the highest possible recommendations from Assistant Secretary
of State Dean Acheson. Long afterward it was discovered that
Alger Hiss was a Communist spy who had been skillfully
planted in the State Department. He had originally been
brought to Washington by Supreme Court Justice Felix Frank
furter.

The sick and undependable Roosevelt, his already handi
capped mind inflamed with grandiose ideas of a World State
that he would head, obviously was in no shape to bargain with
the calculating Stalin, who knew exactly what he wanted.
Roosevelt's principal advisor, the equally exhausted and dying
Harry Hopkins, offered little assistance to Roosevelt in exact
ing a practical long-range agreement with Stalin. Obviously
what was needed was a settlement that at least would give
America the benefit of a decent European peace and a future
Asiatic pact that would carry out America's sacred obligations
to her old ally, Chiang Kai-shek, and would guard her own
great Pacific interests. Hopkins, who had got along so well with
Stalin by the simple expedient of giving him everything he
380

wanted, apparently backed the President in his unrealistic idea
that by the sheer weight of his trust and his generosity to
Stalin he could win over the tough dictator to a sense of honor
and decency.

The net result, however, was that his support of Roose
velt's post-war U. N. views permitted Stalin to move ahead to
the control of Poland, to the dismemberment of Germany and
to the subsequent tragedies that befell Eastern Europe — with
all hope for a permanent and decent peace grounded for long
years to come. As to the Far East, the secret terms of the Yalta
agreement betrayed Nationalist China and actually gave away
lands and rights that belonged to her and to no one else. In
return for this last dishonest act Stalin promised to enter the
war against Japan within three months after victory over Ger
many and, in addition, to become a member of the future
United Nations.

There was no possible way that MacArthur could know of
these secret terms affecting China's integrity. As a matter of
fact, even the Secretary of State and members of the American
Cabinet — as well as Chiang Kai-shek — were kept in ignorance of
them for some time. Stated briefly, the Yalta concessions in
cluded: the leasing to Russia of Port Arthur at the head of the
Yellow Sea; making Dairen into a free international port; the
return of the one-time Russian rights on the Manchurian rail
road, and handing back to Russia the strategic lower half of
Sakhalin Island and the Kuriles immediately north of Ja
pan. Stalin promised as part payment his support of the Na
tionalist Government of Chiang in China.

At the final plenary session at Yalta the persuasive Stalin,
according to Admiral Leahy, openly explained: "I want only
to have returned to Russia what the Japanese have taken from
my country." The fact that much of it had actually belonged
to China apparently was overlooked when the President re
marked: "That seems like a very reasonable suggestion from
our ally — to get back that which has been taken from her/'

Stalin agreed at the time that he would enter the war against
Japan within three months after the German surrender. Mar
shall had won his point. Regardless of the price, America was
to have Russian help against Japan.

381

MacArthur, of course, learned nothing of these disastrous
secret agreements until months after they had been consum
mated. Never once had he been formally consulted by Wash
ington regarding the need for bribing Stalin to enter the Pa
cific war.

As a professional soldier he could not help admiring the
valor and fighting qualities of the Russian Army and the mili
tary resistance of the Kremlin dictatorship. On February 23,
1945, in the midst of the desperate fighting in Manila, he is
sued a statement that read:

The anniversary of the Russian Army cannot fail to be a
memorable event to every soldier of whatever nationality. Its
extraordinary achievements represent in many respects the most
magnificent war effort the world has ever seen. It epitomizes what
so emotionally moves all fighting men — courage, sacrifice for
country, steadfastness under stress, and that white flame of de
termination which burns but the fiercer when desperation is
faced. These are fundamental military virtues which constitute
greatness and produce immortality. God grant its complete vic
tory in its just struggle.

Whether MacArthur wrote out this statement at the direct
request of the War Department is not known. Three years pre
viously on a hint from the War Department he had issued a
highly complimentary salute to the gallantry of the Red sol
diers.

During these swift and confusing spring days of 1945 when the
European war was being brought to a close, MacArthur still
faced heavy fighting both in Luzon and in the central and
southern islands. In Lt. General Eichelberger, commander of
the Eighth Army, he had found his Stonewall Jackson. What
"Old Jack'* meant to Lee in swift and sure obedience and en
ergy, the tall, fearless Buckeye meant to the Southwest Pacific
Commander-in-Chief.

In place of the rolling hills and sweet villages of northern
Virginia and the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, Eichelberger was
382

now to operate on a sea, air and land battlefield more than 500
miles square. In the short five-month period from March 15 to
August 15, 1945, he was to be credited with 52 separate landings,
covering the vast areas of all the central and southern islands
south of Luzon.

The Visayas came first, with landings on Panay on March
15; then on Cebu on the 2 8th, and on sugar-rich Negros the
following day. In western Negros alone there were 14,000 en
emy troops. Already Eichelberger had other units operating far
to the south, and toward the end of March he landed near
Zamboanga in Mindanao and seized the air strip. There was
no slacking of his whirlwind attacks.

Eichelberger now brought his skill to the difficult task of
liberating Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philip
pine group. It was a razzle-dazzle type of football-war his team
played. He drove from three sides across the great mountain
ous island toward the Japanese base at Davao. On May 4 he
personally led the advance column of troops of his 24th Divi
sion and suddenly broke into the outskirts of the battered
town.

Three days later came the news of the German surrender.
The end of the European war was to bring certain changes in
the Pacific setup. There would now be almost unlimited
ground and air reinforcements to draw from, and plans were
swiftly made for the transfer of numerous units half-way
around the world. General "Hap" Arnold, Air Corps represent
ative on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew to Manila with General
George E. Stratemeyer, air commander in China, to confer with
MacArthur and George Kenney. Kenney had already consoli
dated his own immortal Fifth with the experienced Thirteenth
to form the Far East Air Force. To many it appeared that the im
aginative Kenney should have the over-all air command of the
entire Pacific. But Arnold had his own ideas.

The top U. S. air commander announced his plan to bring
in Doolittle and probably Twining from the European thea
tre and give them the long-range Superfortresses to be as
signed to the new Eighth and Twentieth forces. These two
would constitute the Strategic Air Force, and General Spaatz
would probably be placed in command. But as executive agent

383

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Arnold personally would be in com
mand of all air.

No single ship of the magnificent B-sgs had been assigned
to MacArthur' s theatre, and none would be. Many of the men
of the original Fifth Air Force, who from early Guinea days had
fought on a shoestring, did not fully appreciate the necessity of
importing European air commanders, who from the start had
had ten times their number of planes and supplies, and who,
as one of Kenney's commanders complained, "had been eating
high on the hog." Kenney and his officers, Whitehead, Wurt-
smith and Hutchison, Crab and Cooper, may have resented the
newcomers slightly, now that the Pacific war was obviously draw
ing to a close and the terrible days of half-starvation in men and
equipment were over. But they all wanted to finish the war and
get home.

In June MacArthur journeyed south by cruiser to witness
the landings of the Australian troops at Brunei Bay in Borneo.
Kenney's air had cleared the beaches there and broken the set
defenses of the Japanese on that side of the great island. Mac-
Arthur had insisted on going ashore within an hour after the
first waves had landed at 9:15.

The weather was unbearably hot and muggy, but MacAr
thur appeared fresh and cool as he strode in the lead of the
little party toward the advance dements. Men years his junior
were dripping with sweat and falling behind. Rifle fire broke
out ahead, and MacArthur seemed to increase his pace as he
hurried to the point. The Aussies were moving up a few Ma
tilda tanks of the vintage of the dark days of Buna and Gona.
One tall lad from Down Under, looking up as the brass strolled
by, recognized the General and remarked: "Well, ain't that a
bit of bloody all right!"

The tanks struck a trap and were held up. Suddenly two
Nips in ditches on opposite sides of the road, and less than a
hundred feet away, opened up. The Aussies killed them. Mac-
Arthur walked up to where one lay, and leaning over opened
his leather cartridge box. That second an army photographer
dropped to one knee to take a picture. A bullet ripped into his
shoulder. MacArthur saw that the man was not badly wounded
and then led the way ahead. He walked as if he were actually
384

exalted by the danger he faced. (He was wearing his "lucky
hat/' as usual.)

Brigadier General Fellers of his staff turned to George Ken-
ney and whispered that someone should get the Old Man to
turn back. "If MacArthur goes, there is no one else who can
hold this Southwest Pacific together/* Fellers said to the air
commander. "He won't listen to me any more. He just tells
me I can go back if I want to, but that he's going on. Wish
you'd try him, General."

Kenney had his own way of doing things. He walked up
alongside of MacArthur and remarked that if he wanted to col
lect a bullet as a souvenir, he was sure going after it the right
way. Pretty soon they'd be running into a Jap outpost, but that
was the infantry's affair and not the commander-in-chief's busi
ness. How about heading back toward the shore and the
cruiser Boise? MacArthur grinned down at his air commander
and chuckled: "All right, George, we'll go back. You mustn't
miss that chocolate ice cream soda they've got for you."

All this had happened on the Sunday morning of June 10,
1945. On Tuesday the party was at the beautiful harbor of Jolo
on the Sulu Sea. Eichelberger, fresh from his great triumph in
Mindanao, flew in for a conference. With Kenney and Jens
Doe, the 2^th Division commander, they called at the regi
mental headquarters to meet the Sultan of Jolo, who had come
in to pay his respects. He was a weazened little old man, who
in 1905 at the end of the Moro War had surrendered to
John J. Pershing, then a cavalry captain. He had been loyal to
the Americans in all the years since that time, and his people
had enjoyed killing Japanese soldiers who had wandered out
from the old Walled City.

That night after dinner on board the Boise the General un
burdened himself for a full hour on his conclusions about the
war and the mistakes being made in the Central Pacific, about
the Russians and about the world in general. He explained,
for instance, how he had decided on the Brunei Bay operation
only after he had studied the enemy dispositions for several
months. When the Japanese pulled out their fleet from Brunei,
he figured they would also pare down their garrison. He
watched intelligence reports, studied photographs of landing

385

areas and finally concluded that his keystone dictum of know
ing exactly "when and where to fight" had been satisfied. It
was the companion piece to "hittin' 'em where they ain't."

Turning to the larger strategy of the future, he explained
that if it was necessary eventually to land on the enemy's home
islands, a prerequisite should be to have the Russian Army
strike in northern Manchuria before America tried to invade
Kyushu, the lowermost island of the Japanese chain. The Rus
sians should engage the million Japanese soldiers in Manchuria
and dull the edge of the Nip Air Force. It would take up much
of the shock of the American landings and save thousands of
American lives.

The Japanese soldier was tough physically and spiritually, he
went on. He could live on very little, and he would willingly
die. From a purely military point of view it was too bad to
see such courageous soldiers suffer from such stupid leadership.
Yamashita was the best general the Emperor had, but he had
fought a very poor campaign on Luzon, MacArthur concluded.

Two days later MacArthur went ashore at Zamboanga. There
had been sharp fighting here a few weeks before, and some
thousand starving enemy soldiers, including Lt. General Hojo,
had escaped to the hills. Again that night MacArthur, puffing
away on his corn-cob, talked of the great battle of Iwo Jima
and the desperate struggle for Okinawa, both under supreme
naval command and over which he had not the slightest con
trol or authority.

At Iwo Jima the fighting had begun in February 1945, and
in the terrible days that followed the American casualties had
been more than 20,000, with some 4,500 killed. This did not
include the losses of naval personnel, which were well over
1,000. The counted Japanese dead had been 21,000. King and
Nimitz and the Joint Chiefs of Staff had decided that the lit
tle island, 4 miles by 2, was necessary as a half-way base for
the crippled 6-29 bombers returning to their airfields in Sai-
pan and the Marianas after bombing the Tokyo area. And the
Joint Chiefs of Staff considered that it was needed as a base
for fighters accompanying the heavy American bombers on
their long-range raids.

Not even the expensive and deadly Iwo battle had checked
386

the Navy and the JCS in their determination to capture the
large island of Okinawa, which lay almost directly below the
lower tip of the southern home island of Kyushu. The over-all
command was in the hands of Admiral Raymond A. Spru-
ance, with Vice Admiral Richmond K. Turner in charge of
the amphibious forces: the ground operations were assigned to
Lt. General Simon B. Buckner, whose Tenth Army included
both Marine and Army divisions. (Four days after this discus
sion aboard the Boise, the brave Buckner was killed by a shell
as he surveyed his front area. He was replaced by Lt. General
Roy Geiger, of the Marine Corps. After the island had fallen
Lt. General Joseph W. Stilwell replaced Geiger.)

The Okinawa landings began on April i and the fierce and
heroic fighting did not end until June 21. During the week
before final victory, MacArthur and his officers on the Boise
had only a rough estimate of the losses and the frighten
ing cost the Marines and the Army, and the Navy as well, paid
for their triumph. Total American ground casualties on the is
land eventually were put at 65,631 men, including 7,300 dead.
The Japanese Air, largely suicide planes, had sunk 36 ships
and damaged 333 others. Naval casualties afloat were esti
mated as high as 27,000 men, with 4,907 killed on the U. S.
ships. Japanese dead totalled 107,500, with 7,400 prisoners.

The night closed in with the Boise, moving northward
through the quiet Sulu Sea. It was a serious and disturbed
group who quietly analyzed the costly Okinawa venture. Why
had American casualties been so high? Could they have been
prevented? Had there been serious errors in tactics? Thete was
some question, in the first place, whether Okinawa was an ab
solutely essential objective. Smaller islands nearby might have
been taken swiftly without serious losses and fighter bases es
tablished if it still had been felt that Okinawa was absolutely
essential.

The kamakaze suicide planes had injected an element into
the long battle that involved the ancient law of self-
preservation. Naturally, the first duty of the naval aircraft car
riers and escorts was to protect themselves and their sister
ships. Consequently, during enemy air attacks few of the car
rier planes could give the ground forces the needed help and

387

protection. They had first to protect their own ships. In doing
this, possibly as many as 90% of the American carrier-borne
missions flown were to protect the fleet.

Once the upper two-thirds of the 68-mile-long island had
been secured, the lower tip could have been sealed off, and the
troops there allowed to starve. Most of the American ground
casualties had occurred in the exhausting series of deadly fron
tal attacks against this southern nest. The Japanese there might
have been made prisoners of their own barricades, and the cap
tured airfields and bases in the central part of the island could
rapidly have been put into operation.

Within two weeks after the initial landings an area 50 miles
long and the width of the island and well beyond enemy artil
lery range was firmly held by the Americans. It was space
enough to build a great and useful air base and staging area
for the coming assault on the Japanese home islands, without
regard for the doomed enemy troops trapped below. This was
precisely what was done near the end of the costly campaign.

Even when the frontal attacks against the lower pocket were
proving so costly, no bold attempts were ordered at surprise
amphibious landings or great air drops behind the enemy lines
that might have permitted double envelopment. Excellent and
brave as the ground commanders certainly were, the situation
called for an over-all leader who had the imagination and ex
pert know-how — as well as the authority — to depart from staid,
old methods of direct assault.

Such was the conclusion arrived at that late June night on
the warm Sulu Sea.

On July i Eichelberger and his Eighth Army took over the
fighting on Luzon and throughout the entire Philippines.
Krueger and his mighty Sixth Army were released to rest and
reequip for the desperate undertaking that lay ahead.

This Sixth Army had fought long and gallantly. All Luzon
was now cleared, save the almost impenetrable Caraballo
mountains in the north, and portions of the great Sierra Madre
388

chain that ran along the eastern side of the island. Tens of
thousands of utterly fanatical Japanese still held like grim
death to their caves and mortar pits and dugouts along the
steep slopes and narrow, roadless valleys that led into the high
places. To capture a single key mountain track, less than three
miles long in the Caraballos, had taken weeks of cruel fighting
before the series of 214 caves had been blasted and burned
out, and the last of the 9,000 half-crazed defenders killed. The
final link in the steel chain that was now pulled taut around
Luzon had been forged with the American landings at Legaspi
in the south and at Aparri in the extreme north.

By middle August less than 50,000 Japanese troops remained
alive of the total 400,000 who had guarded the scattered islands
when MacArthur on October 250, 1944, made his first landing
at Leyte. On Luzon alone there were now 192,000 counted Jap
anese dead, and 9,700 captured. The total cost had been 7,933
American dead and 32,632 wounded and missing.

The ratio furnished an accurate table of the small American
losses against enemy killed in MacArthur's Southwest Pacific
campaigns. The comparative figures possibly had never been
equalled in war between more or less equal forces. Krueger's
Sixth Army alone had counted more than 250,000 Japanese
dead since it fought its first meager and handicapped battles in
Guinea. It had by-passed and left to die on the vine at least an
other quarter-million. Yet its own losses for almost three years
of war, including Leyte and Luzon, had been 13,199 killed,
51,162 wounded and 528 missing — a total casualty list of 64,
889. For every Sixth Army casualty suffered, the American
soldiers in MacArthur's command had demanded almost four
dead Japanese, and an equal number by-passed and left behind
to starve. Yet MacArthur's naval forces and amphibious units
were but a fraction of those available to the Central Pacific.

The MacArthur strategy and tactics had paid off handsomely
in American boys who came home.

MacArthur will go down as the first great commander who
fully understood and practiced the new 4th dimension in war —
psychological warfare. It can well be called the battle for the
mind of the enemy. Its principal weapons were air-drop leaflets,

389

radio beamings and front-line broadcasts on loud-speakers. It
had been developed in the New Guinea campaigns but it
reached its full effectiveness in the Leyte and Luzon battles.

The sudden death of Roosevelt on April 12 left many highly
important matters regarding the Pacific war hanging in the
air. No final decision had been reached regarding Japanese
peace moves and possible surrender terms. Nor had a conclu
sion been evolved whether Japan could be defeated by sea
blockade and air bombings alone, or if the actual ground in
vasion of the home islands must go ahead.

This last desperate move might eventually cost as many as a
quarter-million American casualties, and was connected irrevo
cably with the proposition of Russia entering the Pacific war as
a result of the promises made at Yalta. In Washington there
was much confusion as a result of the sudden succession as
President of Harry S. Truman, who had had no part in the
tragic conference nor any real knowledge of the unrevealed
commitments.

Washington had withheld from MacArthur knowledge of
the secret efforts Japan's Emperor had begun as far back as
February 14 to get Russia to act as a mediator between Amer
ica and Japan. Through intelligence and the early breaking of
the Japanese code the overtures became known to both the
State Department and General Marshall. It was not until the
Potsdam Conference at the end of July that Stalin acknowl
edged the attempt and admitted his refusal to raise his hand to
stop the war.

On April 7, 1945, the radical Koiso Ministry of the Japanese
War Party resigned in Tokyo. It was shortly replaced by a
cabinet headed by the 77-year-old conservative Kantaro Su
zuki, chamberlain to the Emperor, who was recognized as a
moderate. It was perfectly clear to MacArthur that the drastic
move was a signal to the world that the Emperor was in the
saddle and that Japan might be prepared to move toward peace
talks.

All through the early days of 1945 there were bitter and con-
390

stant attacks on the Japanese Emperor and the monarchy in the
radical and pro-administration press of America. Men who had
advocated the utter crushing of Germany under the disastrous
guise of unconditional surrender, were now clamoring for some
such ruin for Japan and for her whole system of government.
Both points of demand had been strenuously advocated by the
extreme radical press, the Communist Daily Worker in New
York setting the pace. Communist sympathizers over the coun
try joined in the cry for revenge against the Emperor and his
authority. Yet it was the one issue that would insure the stub
born and uncompromising resistance of the Japanese people.

MacArthur's concern was limited to the stern realities of
the situation as they involved the American military forces in
the Pacific. As long as four million Japanese soldiers in Asia
and the Pacific islands and another two million in Japan were
still armed and unbeaten, it was uncertain whether the Emperor
himself could handle them, even if he agreed to a surrender.

On May 26, twelve days after the German surrender, for
mal orders were issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washing
ton setting the target date of November i, 1945, for the inva
sion of Kyushu, and March i, 1946, for the invasion of the
Tokyo Plain. Before the first landings in either island, Japa
nese cities, harbors, factories, concentrations and communica
tions were to be pulverized by constant air bombardment.

According to MacArthur's information there had been little
obvious weakening in the fanatical Japanese resistance, and
even if the Emperor and his more moderate cabinet members
wanted peace, there was no assurance that the War Party
would consent and make invasion unnecessary. From army in
telligence sources the General knew something of the enemy
plans of resistance on the home islands. Great connecting caves
and tunnels, well behind the landing beaches, had already been
prepared with their caches of food and ammunition, and here
fanatical soldiers could fight on until the last man was killed.
Approximately two and a half million regular soldiers still
were garrisoned on the home islands, and there were hundreds
and possibly thousands of suicide planes hidden in wooded
areas and cemeteries with camouflaged security.

But MacArthur had no means of knowing the mass of in-

391

trigue, subterfuge and pro-Soviet politics that was being played
in Washington during these late spring months of 1945 when
President Truman was new to his job. Nor had he been fully
informed as to the secret sections of the Yalta Agreement.
His chief concern was victory and the least possible loss of
American lives.

At best he had only vague knowledge of how the State De
partment was split wide open over the questions: first, whether
the Japanese Army at home and on the Asiatic mainland would
surrender at the command of the Emperor: second, whether
there should be a peace proposal by the United States Govern
ment that would guarantee the continuation of the Emperor's
life and authority: third, whether the entrance of Russia into
the Japanese war would bring on all kinds of dangerous com
plications into the Far East and the Western Pacific.

In the State Department under the direction of Assistant
Secretary Dean Acheson, there had been slowly developing a
leftist crowd calling themselves liberals, who were supported
by a number of men of internationalist sympathies, both
within and without the Department. They were vigorously op
posed by several old China hands, headed by Joseph Grew,
one-time ambassador to Japan and now Undersecretary of
State, and his former Tokyo Counsellor Eugene HL Dooman.
Eventually this small, moderate bloc numbered among its
supporters Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of Navy
James V. Forrestal. General George Marshall and most of the
army people around him seemed dominated by the group that
demanded that the Emperor must go, that Russia must be
brought into the war, and that no terms other than uncondi
tional surrender should be offered Japan.

Toward the end of May, when Secretary of State Stettinius
was still in San Francisco, Undersecretary of State Grew or
dered Dooman, who was chairman of a three-man State-War-
Navy coordinating committee for the Pacific, to complete the
preparation of a paper to be presented to the President that
would be the basis for Japanese surrender. At a subsequent
meeting of the Policy Committee of the State Department, the
paper was studied. There were no objections until it came to
the part suggesting a constitutional monarchy for Japan once a
392

peaceful regime was assured. Both Dean Acheson and Archibald
MacLeish violently objected to this. Acting Secretary Grew an
nounced that he would present the paper to the President as it
stood despite the objections.

A day or two later Grew and Judge Samuel I. Rosenman
went to see the President, who carefully read the document.
According to the later testimony of Dooman before the Senate
Internal Security Sub-committee, the President said "he would
approve and accept the document, provided it was agreeable to
the armed services." Eventually a number were convinced that
a prompt submission of the peace proposal to Tokyo might
have brought on a Japanese surrender before Russia came into
the war, with all the deadly consequences of that act.

The following day a meeting was called at the Secretary of
War's office, attended by Grew, Dooman, Judge Rosenman,
Stimson, Forrestal, McCloy, Elmer Davis, George Marshall and
several officers of the armed services. Copies of the proposed
peace document had been handed out, and Stimson explained
that he approved the paper as it stood. Secretary of Navy For
restal and John J. McCloy both gave their assent. Elmer Davis,
Director of the Office of War Information, however, appears to
have objected and is quoted as stating that he did not approve
of anything that might be construed in any way as forming a
basis for negotiated surrender. Unconditional surrender and
the idea of morgenthauing Japan seemed to suit most of the
group.

It was now that General Marshall intimated that the docu
ment be pigeonholed because its publication at this time
would be premature. It was apparently this decision by Mar
shall that destroyed any chances of a definite peace proposal
being made in late May 1945. Russia was still not ready to en
ter the Pacific war. The delay would certainly be most satis
factory and helpful to her.

Two weeks later Owen Lattimore called on President Tru
man and remonstrated against the government taking any posi
tion which would enable the monarchy to remain in Japan.
But Secretary of War Stimson took the surrender proposal to
the Big Three Conference, which opened in Potsdam near
Berlin in July, and after securing Churchill's approval pre-
393

sented the document to President Truman and Byrnes, the
new Secretary of State. It was accepted by both men, and its
contents wirelessed to Chiang Kai-shek. On July 29, exactly
two months to a day after it had been branded and shelved as
premature by General Marshall, it was thus promulgated as
the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan, and it was largely on this
basis that Japan surrendered 16 days later. Its presentation to
the Japanese government in May might have cut short the war
and automatically solved the problem of Russia invading Man
churia and Korea at the ultimate cost of the loss of China, the
Korean war and its deadly aftermath.

One more item of the devious and complicated episode still
remains to be told. On May 28, the day before the historic
meeting at the Secretary of War's office in the Pentagon when
the peace proposal was turned down by the Marshall crowd, a
radio was received from Harry Hopkins, reporting the result
of his third interview with Stalin in Moscow. Its opening sen
tence read:

By August 8 the Soviet Army will be properly deployed on
the Manchurian border. . . . Stalin left no doubt in our mind
that he intends to attack during August.

When the terms of the Potsdam Declaration to Japan were
received in Manila in late July, there was considerable skepti
cism regarding its effect. MacArthur was far from certain that
it would bring an early peace. He understood how tough and
fanatical the Japanese militarists were and how deeply en
trenched.

He realized fully the terrible damage the constant bombing
was doing co the home islands and that the ultimate doom of
Japan had long ago been sealed. While he could fervently hope
for peace, he must continue in his preparation for the desper
ate Kyushu landings, scheduled three months ahead.

On the last day of July Admiral Sherman, Nimitz's chief of
staff, flew in with the suggestion that it would be well to pre
pare plans for a Japanese surrender. His idea was that the Navy
should receive simultaneous surrender of the enemy forces in
394

all the principal Japanese and Asiatic harbors. After that was
accomplished and peace was assured, MacArthur could gradu
ally land his troops and take over.

MacArthur made no attempt to conceal his complete disap
proval of the Navy plan. He was certain that local Japanese
port and naval commanders in many instances would neither
believe nor understand the surrender terms and some might
even refuse to recognize their validity. The result would be
confusion, with the possibility of fighting breaking out in prac
tically every harbor entered by the American Navy. Nor would
the Navy be able adequately to garrison the ports immediately
after their surrender was effected.

MacArthur contended that a bloodless surrender of the en
emy forces was possible only if it were made in Tokyo at the
direct order of the Emperor. Once Hirohito's personal surren
der orders were made known to his field commanders, they
would almost certainly obey them. MacArthur was firm in his
belief that American demands to the enemy ground, sea and
air commanders, if unsupported by the Emperor's mandate,
would lead to heavy local fighting wherever Japanese forces
were intact.

Time was the critical factor, and MacArthur insisted that
when the actual capitulation neared, he and a reasonable num
ber of troops should be landed in Tokyo without a moment's
delay. Here in the Emperor's palace he planned to receive the
formal surrender and arrange for similar actions in the various
Pacific islands and on the Asiatic mainland. Otherwise it was
almost certain that Japanese reaction would result in a terrible
and completely unnecessary loss of American life.

When Admiral Sherman would not agree, MacArthur ex
plained that he would then have George Kenney fly him to
Tokyo at the proper time. He would order the Japanese to
clear and guard an airdome near Tokyo; then he would have
an American army division brought in by air lift, and he per
sonally would receive the surrender and assume command of
all Allied forces as they landed.

With the interview over, Admiral Sherman, flabbergasted at
the startling and realistic proposal, went to Lt. General Suth
erland, MacArthur's chief of staff, for a re-checking. Suther-

395

land gave his opposite number little satisfaction. "Well, he's
personally landed at Manus, Hollandia, Morotai, Leyte, Lin-
gayen, Brunei Bay and Balikpapan," Sutherland explained,
"and if he said he'd land at Tokyo, he will do it — and I shall
not try to talk him out of it."

Mac Arthur's G-g, Major General Chamberlain, then met
with Admiral Sherman and details of the MacArthur plan were
shortly worked out. But the war was still on, and peace was
still uncertain.

The early August days were crowded with rumors and
counter rumors, with bright hopes and pessimistic reactions.
Meanwhile taking out the Japanese cities and their war poten
tials went on. The waters of the Inland Sea were daily mined
from the air, and all Japanese shipping was blasted around-the-
clock. On flying days as many as 1,500 of Kenney's bombers
alone carried out their missions of death and destruction
against Japanese bases and installations all the way from Kyu
shu to Borneo. At the same time the deadly B-2gs were piling
up their scores.

On August 5, Manila time, a special messenger arrived in
Manila with the top secret information that an atomic bomb
would be dropped on an industrial area south of Tokyo the
following day. There had been a trial explosion in mid-July at
Los Alamos, New Mexico, but no one could be sure what
would be the result of this full-scale effort. The A-bomb
dropped on August 6 did not actually rock the Eastern world,
as some believed it might, but the early reports estimated that
a hundred thousand human beings were destroyed or maimed
in Hiroshima.

There was still no final news on that historic day of August
6 or on the next day about any direct peace answer from To
kyo. On the 8th MacArthur received the word that the Soviets
had actually entered the war and that great Russian forces
were lunging into Manchuria, some directly toward Korea,
against light Japanese opposition. It was now clear to him
that under no circumstances would he have to send Americans
to their death on the beaches of Kyushu and Honshu while a
million Japanese troops still remained as possible reinforce
ments in Manchuria.
396

MacArthur had been kept at least partially informed of the
general Manchurian invasion plans of the Russian armies. For
several weeks previous to the Soviets entering the war, negotia
tions had been going on between Washington and Moscow for
a military liaison team to be sent from Manila to contact the
Russians and join their advances south into Manchuria and
coordinate the Russian-American air strikes. MacArthur had
chosen his military secretary, Brigadier General Fellers, to
head the liaison mission as a major general. The Russians had
delayed their acceptance of the plan, although they had their
own mission in the Philippines, and when the fighting shortly
ended, they refused the proposed American mission the right
to enter their war zones.

The day following Russia's declaration of war and march
into Manchuria, correspondents urged MacArthur to make a
statement, and on August 9 he released the following:

I am delighted at the Russian declaration of war against Japan.
This will make possible a great pincer movement which cannot
fail to end in the destruction of the enemy. In Europe, Russia
was on the eastern front, the Allies on the west. Now the Allies
are on the east and Russia on the west, but the result will be the
same.

Apparently MacArthur continued to be concerned over the
possibility that the Japanese armed forces would refuse to sur
render peacefully, and that they might have to be dug out and
killed. For four years he had watched the almost inconceivable
mass suicide tactics of Japanese soldiers when they could have
saved their lives by a mere gesture of surrender. Time and
again he had seen the kamakaze fliers dive to their death, and
he had long pondered over such senseless disregard of human
life, even if it be their own, that dominated millions of Japa
nese.

There still remained the terrible possibility that these
strangely devoted and dedicated enemy forces would refuse the
Emperor's orders to lay down their arms, and an actual inva
sion of these battered islands would be necessary. The Em
peror was the key. But even so, MacArthur understood the
great risk involved, and that Russian intervention in Man-

397

churia would save thousands of American lives if the actual
invasion of the Japanese homeland was necessary. He had been
rigidly excluded from the great international policy-making
meetings and had little knowledge of the secret agreements ar
rived at and the cost Roosevelt and Marshall had paid in
broken pledges to China for the promise of Stalin's interven
tion. He could only view the situation from the isolated bor
ders of his own theatre — and not with the full knowledge of
the intrigues and betrayals at Yalta and later at Potsdam, in
which General Marshall had actually participated. It was purely
the human equation that influenced MacArthur.

The day following his statement the second atomic bomb
was dropped on Nagasaki. Fortunately it did not hit the center
of the city, but the damage was ghastly. The two A-bombs
made every previous act of war or atrocity or revenge seem
puny and inconsequential.

A day later, Domei, the official Japanese news agency, broad
cast the statement that the Potsdam Declaration would be ac
cepted if the Emperor's dynasty was permitted to remain in
tact. On the nth a note was sent to Tokyo through the Swiss
Minister in Washington explaining a little ambiguously that
the Emperor and the government would be subject to the or
ders of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. When
there was no reply, the following day orders were sent out for
the several American air forces to continue the bombings.

On the morning of the igth the Emperor for a second time
called his Supreme Council together and ordered them to pre
pare a radio script. This, the Emperor personally recorded on
a platter as a rescript of surrender to be broadcast that same
night. It had been a dramatic meeting, and the imperial order
had barely been carried out when a mob of a thousand in
flamed soldiers broke into the palace. Only by hiding in his
bomb-proof shelter did the Emperor save himself from prob
able assassination. He had held firm to his belief that the peo
ple would support him because they now knew the war was
lost and that the military had lied to them. He, too, had read
the American propaganda pamphlets that had been air
dropped by the millions over Japan and had aided so materi-
398

ally in the psychological preparedness of the masses for their
surrender and occupation.

The surrender terms were received in Washington on the
i4th. Early that evening President Truman broadcast the ac
ceptance of what he called "the unconditional surrender of
Japan."

In his short broadcast the President added that General
Douglas MacArthur had been appointed Supreme Allied Com
mander to receive the surrender.

For three years the able and determined Admiral King had
constantly fought to insure the Pacific getting even the small
part of the total war effort that Roosevelt and Churchill be-
grudgingly allotted it. The Navy's Central Pacific areas kept
most of the entire Pacific allotments, but without King s sus
tained efforts up to late 1944 the Japanese war would have
been even more neglected than it was.

The terrible losses in the Navy-controlled Okinawa battle
had shocked President Truman, and this had helped influence
him in favor of MacArthur. Nimitz was the Navy's choice for
the post of supreme allied commander.

The new President had not as yet succumbed to the bitter
hatred and envy that the leftist groups around the White
House, along with certain individuals in the Pentagon and
State Department, had for MacArthur. He could still make his
own decisions.

So it was that the bitter controversy over command and al
lotments that had plagued the Pacific for so long, came to an
end with victory. The Navy no longer would stand out against
MacArthur.

But other strong forces of even a more deadly nature would
shortly combine to oppose his ideas and his methods. Washing
ton would continue a very real and devastating second front for
him.

The day following Japan's acceptance of the surrender terms
MacArthur ordered that enemy emissaries fly at once to Manila

399

to receive final instructions* He stated that they were to make
the first leg of the journey in one of their own planes, with
green crosses painted on the fuselage and wings. They were to
use the call letters B-A-T-A-A-N, and they would land at Io
Shima, an island off the northwest tip of Okinawa, and from
there an American plane would carry them to Manila.

The Japanese radioed that it was uncertain whether the rep
resentatives were to sign the surrender or merely negotiate the
terms. MacArthur sternly answered that his instructions were
clear and to carry them out. A subsequent message that they
would use the call letters J-N-P met with a terse order that
the call letters B-A-T-A-A-N had been given them.

The envoys arrived in Manila at 6 P.M. August 19. Major
General Willoughby, Chief of Intelligence, and Colonel Sid
ney F. Mashbir, fluent Japanese-language scholar and head of
the Japanese interpreter section of the staff, met the small dele
gation. There was no show of the amenities, and hand shakes
were refused by General Willoughby and Colonel Mashbir.
The enemy group was led directly to a hotel. That night Chief
of Staff Sutherland received them with cold formality. They
were told exactly what to do and what was expected of their
defeated country. There was not the slightest effort at humilia
tion or brutal intimidation such as Wainwright had received.
It was all strictly stern, impersonal business.

MacArthur's instructions to them were clear and precise.
The Japanese were directed to prepare the airdrome at At-
sugi, 10 or 15 miles from Yokohama, for the landing of an air
borne division. They were to arrange hotel accommodations
and billets and transportation. Their troops were to be with
drawn first from the Atsugi area and then from Yokohama and
finally from the Tokyo area. All forces were to be disarmed
and demobilized as swiftly as possible. The air landings would
begin August 28, weather permitting, and the formal surren
der would come two days later.

The following day the emissaries flew back to Japan. Mac-
Arthur had decided not to see them, but he had arrived at
the definite impression that they would honorably and com
pletely carry out the spirit as well as the letter of their instruc-
400

tions. They had also left the feeling that the military and civil
ian population would be guided by the Emperor's wishes that
they peacefully lay down their arms and accept the occupation
of their country.

For the next ten days he mulled over the risk he and his sol
diers would be taking in landing almost in the center of a vast
armed camp. He would be dealing with the psychology of an
Oriental people, and he would be successful only if overnight
they could be led to abandon their fanaticism and hate and to
accept orders from their Emperor that were the exact antithe
sis of all that they had been taught by the military. Here was
the unprecedented gamble he was taking.

It was obvious that his hope of success lay in his own assur
ance that the Japanese military leaders and population would
obey the orders of the Emperor, and that the pledges made by
the emissaries would be carried out.

MacArthur unhesitatingly decided to take the long chance.
He called in Eichelberger, whose Eighth Army was to furnish
the occupation troops, and had him limit his initial landing op
eration to the nth Airborne Division and cancel the former
coordinated plan to push the 24th Division ashore in Tokyo
Bay at the same time. Sea-borne troops could come later.

Eichelberger suggested that MacArthur at least permit him
to fly in with a part of his division two days before the Su
preme Commander's arrival so that he could make sure every
thing was safe. MacArthur shook his head. Eichelberger could
have a two-hour start.

At 9:00 on the morning of August 29 the Supreme Com
mander in Manila boarded the Bataan for Okinawa. Brigadier
General Fellers, military secretary, and Colonel Mashbir, in
terpreter, and his medical aide, Lt. Colonel Roger Egbert,
and two Filipino orderlies accompanied him. The Japanese
had radioed that they were having trouble preparing Atsugi
airdrome and that a short delay was requested. Unsatisfactory
weather conditions helped out in granting the request. Mac-
Arthur did not know at the time that the delay asked for was
largely due to the fact that Japanese Army troops had been
forced into a sharp little fight before the 300 kamakaze pilots

401

billeted at Atsugi could be disarmed and the propellers of
their planes removed and destroyed.

At 2:00 in the afternoon of the sgth the Bataan dropped
down on Okinawa. Later Mac Arthur called on Major General
Swing, whose nth Airborne Division had been flown up from
the Philippines in 250 C-54's that had been loaned Kenney by
General Arnold. They could fly from Okinawa to Tokyo and
return without refueling. Kenney had never before had such
long-range transports, and never for a day had he the use of
the mighty Superforts.

General Swing remarked to MacArthur that his air-borne
troops were landing in fighting clothes ready for anything.
MacArthur answered casually that it wasn't the clothes the
men wore that counted but the way they wore them. He added
that he was especially anxious that the landings and occupation
be made without any serious incidents.

That night MacArthur sat on the little porch in front of his
Quonset hut and outlined to a member of his staff his ideas
about the Japanese occupation and the great task that lay
ahead. They had been formulated into exact phrases and con
clusions in his mind during the ten days since the Japanese
emissaries arrived at Manila. But they were based on his own
deep background and knowledge of the Far East that covered
a full four decades.

It was a seven-point policy he proposed, and all was to be
implemented through the Emperor and the machinery of the
Imperial government.

1. Disarm all Japanese forces.

2. Demobilize and send the men to their homes.

3. Divert such heavy industry as remains from war activity.

4. Open all schools with no check on instruction save to end
all pre-military teaching and add courses in civics.

5. Give the vote to women.

6. Hold free elections.

7. Permit labor to organize and bargain for its rights.
Although far-seeing and humane, it seemed a rather large

order. At best it would take many years to fulfill the complex
mission. He was well into his 67th year, and he had had no
single day of relief for more than four years. And it had al-
402

ready been eight and a half years since he had stepped foot on
his homeland.

Lt. General Sutherland joined MacArthur 's plane at 9:00 on
the morning after his arrival at Okinawa, and rode in the cock
pit on the five-hour flight to the Atsugi airfield. Brigadier Gen
eral Whitney also accompanied the party. Eichelberger and
some 500 soldiers, with the band of the nth Airborne Divi
sion, were on hand to welcome the Bataan when it landed at
2:00 P.M., August 30. For some minutes the men on the plane
had been keeping their eyes on a sight that certainly none of
them would ever see again. Far below on the broad waters of
Tokyo Bay lay the hundreds of warships comprising the great
Pacific armada that had had so much to do with victory.

MacArthur was puffing on his corncob pipe when he led the
way down the landing ladder of his plane. Eichelberger sa
luted him as he stepped to the ground.

"Bob, this is the payoff," he said with a grin.

They talked over the arrangements that had been made.
Two bombers roared in, three minutes apart. One belonged to
General George Kenney and the other to General Carl Spaatz.
When the air generals walked from their planes, all had the
butts of their automatic pistols showing in their shoulder hol
sters. The firearm had long been part of their battle dress.
MacArthur quietly suggested to Kenney that maybe they'd bet
ter leave their guns in the planes. Within marching distance
were some 15 enemy divisions, and if the Japanese didn't mean
what they had pledged, a dozen or so pistols wouldn't make
any difference. Later it was discovered that this gesture created
a most favorable impression among the Japanese.

The automobiles that were furnished were old and worn
out, and the procession to the New Grand Hotel at bombed-
out Yokohama was made at a slow pace. Every hundred feet or
so an armed Japanese soldier stood with his back to the little
cavalcade. They were guarding the American Supreme Com
mander in the exact fashion that they guarded their Emperor.
This was significant.

MacArthur was shown to his hotel suite and offered a pri
vate dining room. He shook his head and answered that he
would eat in the regular dining room with his officers. So far,
everything was clicking according to schedule.

The following day the details regarding the surrender pro
cedure on board the U. S. S. Missouri were threshed out. Mac-
Arthur had insisted that both Generals Wainwright and Perci-
val, the American and British Commanders at Manila and
Singapore, who had been so humiliated and mistreated, should
be flown in from the prison camps in Manchuria and be pres
ent at this high moment of triumph. He also insisted that
each commander of the several Allied forces that had helped
in the victory share in the great day.

And now one of the great Sundays in all American history
was at hand. A bright sun shone on the steel quarter-deck of
the battleship Missouri. The moment of actual surrender had
arrived.

The Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mamoru Shige-
mitsu, embarrassed that he could not fit his wooden leg under
the small table, nervously fumbled with his pen, while he sought
to find the line where he was to place his signature. MacArthur,
tense, grim-faced, snapped out the words: "Sutherland! Show
him where to sign!"

It was MacArthur's day. He dominated every moment of the
great drama. As he played his part, he seemed to stand head
and shoulders above them all.

The last signature had been affixed. Only one final gesture
remained — MacArthur's report to his own people. For him, in
a way, it was the most sacred and solemn part of the unforget
table ceremony. His voice was low and tense with emotion.
Slowly he read:

My fellow countrymen:

Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended, A great
victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death — the seas
bear only commerce— men everywhere walk upright in the sun
light. The entire world lies quietly at Peace, The Holy Mission
has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people,
I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the
jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific
404

which marked the way. I speak for the un-named brave millions
homeward bound to take up the challenge of that future which
they did so much to salvage from the brink of disaster.

As I look back on the long, tortuous trail from those grim days
of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire world lived in fear;
when Democracy was on the defensive everywhere, when modern
civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that
he has given us the faith, the courage and the power from which
to mould victory. We have known the bitterness of defeat and the
exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can
be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace
what we won in war.

A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of Victory itself brings
with it profound concern, both for our future security and the
survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the War potential,
through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact
now reached a point which revises the traditional concept of War.

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various
methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an
international process to prevent or settle disputes between na
tions. From the very start workable methods were found in so far
as individual citizens were concerned but the mechanics of an
instrumentality of larger international scope have never been
successful. Military alliances, balance of power, Leagues of Na
tions all in turn failed leaving the only path to be by way of the
crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blots out
this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we do not devise
some greater and more equitable system Armageddon will be at
our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a
spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that
will synchronize with our almost matchless advance in science,
art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the
past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save
the flesh.

We stand in Tokyo today reminiscent of our countryman,
Commodore Perry, ninety-two years ago. His purpose was to bring
to Japan an era of enlightenment and progress by lifting the veil
of isolation to the friendship, trade and commerce of the world.
But alas the knowledge thereby gained of Western science was
forged into an instrument of oppression and human enslavement.
Freedom of expression, freedom of action, even freedom of
thought were denied through suppression of liberal education,

405

through appeal to superstition ana through the application of
force. We are committed by the Potsdam Declaration of Principles
to see that the Japanese people are liberated from this condition
of slavery. It is my purpose to implement this commitment just
as rapidly as the armed forces are demobilized and other essential
steps taken to neutralize the war potential. The energy of the
Japanese race, if properly directed, will enable expansion ver
tically rather than horizontally. If the talents of the race are
turned into constructive channels, the country can lift itself from
its present deplorable state into a position of dignity.

To the Pacific basin has come the vista of a new emancipated
world. Today, freedom is on the offensive, democracy is on the
march. Today, in Asia as well as in Europe, unshackled peoples
are tasting the full sweetness of liberty, the relief from fear.

In the Philippines, America has evolved a model for this new
free world of Asia. In the Philippines, America has demonstrated
that peoples of the East and peoples of the West may walk side
by side in mutual respect and with mutual benefit. The history
of our sovereignty there has now the full confidence of the East.

And so, my fellow countrymen, today I report to you that your
sons and daughters have served you well and faithfully, with
the calm, deliberate, determined fighting spirit of the American
soldier and sailor based upon a tradition of historical truth, as
against the fanaticism of an enemy supported only by mytho
logical fiction. Their spiritual strength and power has brought
us through to victory. They are homeward bound — take care of
them.

It was as if he, too, were signing off for good. He had
reached the end of the long trail. From now on it seemed cer
tain that everything that came to his life would necessarily be
in the nature of anti-climax.

But Time was to prove how wrong was this surmise.

406

20

MACARTHUR SAVES JAPAN
FROM THE REDS

Six days after the formal surrender on the great battleship
Missouri, MacArthur drove the 30 miles from Yokohama to
Tokyo. Much of the ride was through devastated areas. On all
sides was ruin and desolation.

A Guard of Honor from the old yth Cavalry Regiment, of
the ist Cavalry Division, was drawn up in front of the U. S.
Embassy Chancery, which was the scene of the simple and
memorable ceremony of raising the American flag. In some
ways it was almost as touching to MacArthur as the actual sur
render on board the battleship. His voice betrayed the inten
sity of the moment, as he gave the order:

General Eichelberger: Have our country's flag unfurled and
in Tokyo's sun let it wave in its full glory as a symbol of hope
for the oppressed and as a harbinger of victory for the right.

Two years later in a short message to the Daughters of the
American Revolution MacArthur described an incident that
occurred that day while he was inspecting the bombed chancery,
which was some little distance from the Embassy itself. It can
best be told in his own words:

I recall that in Tokyo, at the end of the bloody Pacific trail,
after unfurling our flag over the American Embassy on Septem
ber 8, 1945, while inspecting the fire-gutted Chancery building
I saw hanging upon the wall as I approached an uninjured por
trait of George Washington. It moved me more than I can say.
It seemed peculiarly appropriate that he should be there calmly
awaiting the arrival of American arms. For it is from the example
of his wise and resolute leadership in releasing the forces of
human freedom from the shackles of tyranny and oppression, and

407

the indomitable qualities of his compatriots, our forebears, that
has come much of the inspiration which since has fired American
hearts with the will to victory, as we stubbornly have fought to
defend that freedom, won for us by the grace of God and the
invincibility of our Continental Arms.

It required little time to refurbish the Embassy residence
sufficiently for MacArthur to occupy it; the American bombers
had smashed everything around it, but it had come through
without a scratch. He remained at the Grand Hotel in Yoko
hama less than a week, and then a comfortable house owned by
the Sun Oil Company in a part of the city called The Bluff was
turned over to him. Here a small mess was set up that in
cluded his military secretary, his language expert and his per
sonal doctor, who was also acting as his aide. Within a matter
of two or three weeks he moved, lock, stock and barrel, to
the beautiful Embassy, and a few days later Mrs. MacArthur
and Arthur flew from Manila to join him there.

The first steps in the difficult occupation procedure had gone
ahead without a hitch. The Japanese government faithfully
carried out every detail of the surrender agreements, and the
swift demobilization and disarming of the millions of enemy
soldiers proceeded even more swiftly than was expected. It was
already evident that the great gamble involved in trusting and
then making use of the Emperor's authority and his government
was working out perfectly.

But back in America, and particularly in Washington and
New York, there was an increase in the violent criticism in
press and radio against retaining the Emperor. It was a part of
the positive demand that Hirohito and his dynasty and the
entire fascist government must be destroyed root and branch.
The bell-wether of the attack was the Communist Daily Worker,
and its lead was followed by a group of papers that included
two or three of the largest and most respected newspapers in
New York City. Hand in glove with the press assaults went the
same type of intense criticism by a number of broadcasters with
nation-wide hookups.

The "line" had been laid down before the surrender, but
within a few days after its formal announcement by President
408

Truman, a concerted attack was opened by the Daily Worker
against both MacArthur and the Emperor, Over the country
generally the same voices and the same publications that had
demanded turning Germany into a pastoral state were now urg
ing a similar policy toward Japan. In many instances the prop
aganda for a harsh peace included bitter smears of General
MacArthur personally.

On Friday, September 14, the Daily Worker ran a full-page
story under the heading:

MACARTHUR LINKED TO FASCISTS
SEIZING POWER IN PHILIPPINES

It was signed by one Jos£ Balahap, and was announced as
the first of three articles. It claimed that MacArthur owned
stock in several business ventures in Manila, and that he was
associated with a number of capitalists there. The intimation
was that the Supreme Commander in Japan would now pro
tect the fascists and the capitalists in Japan.

On the same morning that the Daily Worker printed its per
sonal blast against MacArthur the General issued a statement
in answer to the flood of adverse comment that had been di
rected against himself and the occupation. It read:

I have noticed some impatience in the press based upon the
assumption of a so-called soft policy in Japan. This can only
arise from an erroneous concept of what is occurring. . . .

The first phase of the occupation must of necessity be based
upon military considerations which involve the deployment for
ward of our own troops and the disarming and demobilization
of the enemy. . . .

When the first phase is completed, the other phases as provided
in the surrender terms will infallibly follow. No one need have
any doubt about the prompt, complete and entire fulfillment of
the terms of surrender. The process, however, takes time. . . .
The surrender terms are not soft and they will not be applied
in kid-gloved fashion.

Economically and industrially, as well as militarily, Japan is
completely exhausted and depleted. She is in a condition of utter
collapse. Her governmental structure is controlled completely
by the occupation forces and is operating only to the extent

409

necessary to insure such an orderly and controlled procedure as
will prevent social chaos, disease and starvation. . . .

It is extraordinarily difficult for me at times to exercise that
degree of patience which is unquestionably demanded if the
long-time policies which have been decreed are to be successfully
accomplished without repercussions which would be detrimental
to the well-being of the world, but I am restraining myself to the
best of my ability and am generally satisfied with the progress
being made.

Instead of succeeding in its obvious intent at conciliation,
the statement seemed to have the exactly opposite effect. Radio
commentators and many important newspapers continued to
pound away at MacArthur and his occupation methods with
constant demands that the Emperor be pushed aside and pun
ished.

Three days after his initial statement MacArthur sought to
enlighten his critics and the public by a report so reassuring
and optimistic that there could no longer be any legitimate
criticism of his work. America was in the midst of a vast emo
tional urge that her soldiers everywhere be brought home.
The near-miracle of bloodless occupation that had occurred in
Japan played directly into this sentimental demand, and the
bright hope that MacArthur now held out gave a tremendous
importance to his announcement. Its implied promises had
been well augmented a few days before when General Eichel-
berger had been quoted as saying, "If the Japs continue acting
as they are now, within a year this thing should be washed up."

The MacArthur statement read:

The smooth progress of the occupation of Japan has enabled
a drastic cut in the number of troops originally estimated for that
purpose. . . .

By utilizing the Japanese governmental structure to the extent
necessary to prevent complete social disintegration, insure in
ternal distribution, maintain labor and prevent calamitous dis
ease or wholesale starvation, the purposes of the surrender terms
can be accomplished with only a small fraction of the men, time
and money originally projected. . . . Probably no greater gamble
has been taken in history than the initial landings where our
ground forces were outnumbered a thousand to one, but the
stakes were worth it.
410

Then came the proposal that was to bring on a violent reac
tion from those who wanted a harsh and bitter revenge on Ja
pan:

As a consequence of the saving in men the occupation forces
originally believed essential are being drastically cut, and troops
will be returned to the United States as rapidly as ships can be
made available. Within six months the occupational force, unless
unforeseen factors arise, will probably number not more than
two hundred thousand men, a size probably within the frame
work of our projected regular establishment, and which will
permit the complete demobilization of our citizen Pacific forces
which have fought so long and so nobly through to victory. Once
Japan is disarmed, this force will be sufficiently strong to insure
our will. . . .

It was ready-made for the headline writers and for sensa
tional radio announcers. But somehow the happy news it car
ried to mothers and wives and to millions of American families
fell like a deadly bomb on the Department of State in Wash
ington.

Two days after the statement was issued in Tokyo Acting
Secretary of State Dean Acheson held a press conference in his
office. The secret pro-Russian and anti-Japanese groups within
the Department obviously had found their hoped-for leader in
the Acting Secretary. In answer to a question by a reporter,
Acheson formally replied:

I have no comment to make on the military aspects of what
General MacArthur stated. That is a purely military matter with
which the State Department is not properly concerned.

I think I can say that I am surprised that anybody can fore
see at this time the number of forces which will be necessary in
Japan. That may come from iny inadequate knowledge of the
military field, however, and it is not very important.

The important thing is that the policy in regard to Japan is
the same policy which has always been held by this Government
and is still held so far as I know — and I think I know.

In carrying out that policy the occupation forces are the in
struments of policy and not the determinants of policy, and the
policy is and has been that the surrender of Japan will be carried
out, that Japan will be put in position where it cannot renew

411

aggressive warfare, that the present economic and social system
of Japan which makes for a will-to-war will be changed so that
will-to-war will not continue, and whatever it takes to carry this
out will be used to carry it out.

The day before, President Truman at his regular press con
ference had quietly explained that he had not been informed
of the possibilities of the drastic cut in the Japanese occupa
tion forces until he had seen it in the General's statement.
MacArthur had first estimated that he would need an army of
occupation of 500,000. He had later reduced that estimate to
400,000, and now there was a possibility that it might be as
low as 200,000. The President's calm appraisal was quite dif
ferent from the somewhat ill-tempered viewpoint of Acheson,
Acting Secretary of State.

Acheson's appointment as Undersecretary of State was yet to
be confirmed, and when it came up before the Senate five days
later it brought on a four-hour debate, with Senator Wherry,
Republican of Nebraska, and his Democratic colleague, Sena
tor Chandler of Kentucky, vigorously challenging the remarks
and the attitude of Acheson toward MacArthur. Acheson's ap
pointment was in the end confirmed by a Senate vote of 69 to
i, although previously a motion to send the nomination back
to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for clarification
had been voted down by 66 to 12.

The rather violent reaction against MacArthur by Acheson
at least brought two things into the clear: the definite proof
where MacArthur's most determined and bitter opposition at
home lay, and the release by the President of the full text of
the initial policy relating to Japan as prepared by the Far East
Sub-committees of the Coordinating Committee of the State,
War and Navy Departments and approved by the President.

The paper had been drawn shortly before the occupation be
gan and had been radioed out to Manila for MacArthur's sug
gestions and approval. Four days after the Japanese surrender
on the Missouri, a special messenger arrived by plane from
Washington with the full text for MacArthur. It had been
kept a top secret, however, and its publication now apparently
relieved MacArthur of much of the personal attacks being
412

made against him on account o£ his conciliatory attitude to
ward the Emperor and the Japanese government.

The sections of the long directive that applied particularly
to the Supreme Commander's relation with the Emperor and
the government read:

The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese government
will be subject to the Supreme Commander, who will possess all
powers necessary to effectuate the surrender terms and to carry
out the policies established for the conduct of the occupation
and the control of Japan.

In view of the present character of Japanese society and the
desire of the United States to attain its objectives with a mini
mum commitment of its forces and resources, the Supreme Com
mander will exercise his authority through Japanese governmental
machinery and agencies, including the Emperor, to the extent
that this satisfactorily furthers United States objectives.

The Japanese government will be permitted, under his instruc
tions, to exercise the normal powers of government in matters of
domestic administration. This policy, however, will be subject
to the right and duty of the Supreme Commander to require
changes in governmental machinery or personnel, or to act di
rectly if the Emperor or other Japanese authority does not satis
factorily meet the requirements of the Supreme Commander in
effectuating the surrender terms.

One other paragraph gave MacArthur the exact powers that
would prove of inestimable value a little later in the occupa
tion:

Although every effort will be made, by consultation and by
constitution of appropriate advisory bodies, to establish policies
for the conduct of the occupation and the control of Japan which
will satisfy the principal Allied powers, in the event of any dif
ferences of opinion among them, the policies of the United States
will govern.

The sudden outbreak against General MacArthur by the Acting
Secretary of State tended to bring into the open the tight little

413

group within the Department that had quietly been wielding a
considerable influence in Far Eastern affairs. Acheson, whose
successful law firm had often represented foreign governments
in financial dealings with the United States government, had
long been one of the principal members of this group. Associ
ated with him in various degrees at this time were John Carter
Vincent, John Paton Davis, head of the China Division, John
Stewart Service, Lauchlin Currie, Owen Lattimore, Alger Hiss
(chief of the department of political affairs) and a number of
others. Later it was to come out that at least one member of this
group was a member of a Communist cell exerting tremendous
influence in many matters that concerned the whole of the ex
plosive Western Pacific and East Asia.

The subversives concerned were largely occupied with the
general premise that Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Gov
ernment must be defeated and replaced by the Chinese Com
munist "agrarian reformers/' At the same time they secretly
insisted that the whole involved fascist government of Japan
must go, and the doors be opened for a large-scale infusion
of Red agents. The ultimate fate of Korea was tied into
the idea that some day this long abused country of 30,000,000
inhabitants would become a Communist People's Republic.

There had been, however, a definite opposing right-wing
group in the State Department led by Undersecretary Joseph
C. Grew that included Dr. Stanley Hornbeck, Joseph Ballan-
tine, Eugene Dooman, Adolf Berle, James C. Dunn and a num
ber of other able and highly patriotic men. During the war years
President Roosevelt had largely functioned as his own Secretary
of State, but with his death and the succession of the inexperi
enced Truman the State Department had been able to regain
some of its former power and influence.

When Stettinius succeeded the ailing Cordell Hull in late
1944, he devoted most of his energy to establishing the United
Nations, and the direction of the important Far Eastern affairs
was left to the older permanent department officials. Conse
quently, during the spring and summer of 1945, Grew and his
associates were able to a considerable extent to check the Ache-
son crowd of liberal left-wingers, to supervise the general terms
of surrender laid out at Potsdam and to control the drafting of
414

the wise and liberal terms in the initial policy statement fol
lowing Japan's collapse.

Byrnes had been appointed Secretary of State only a few days
before the Potsdam Conference opened in Berlin early in July.
Upon his return to Washington, Undersecretary Grew, worn
and discouraged over the sudden strength being developed by
the Achesonites, presented his resignation. Eugene Dooman,
long associated with Grew in Tokyo, and now in charge of
the important Far Eastern section, likewise resigned.

Thus by August of 1945 there had disappeared most of the
opposition to the infiltration of the Communist line into the
sections of the State Department that made policies concerning
Japan, China, the Philippines and Korea. In the place of the
loyal and devoted Americans who had been in control, there
now appeared a group of men who were anti-Japanese, anti-
Chiang Kai-shek, anti-free Korea, but decidedly pro-Commu
nist Chinese.

A short time before this date, Dean Acheson had resigned as
first assistant secretary, but when Grew and Dooman resigned
Secretary Byrnes at once telephoned Acheson and asked him
to return to the State Department to take Grew's place in the
far more powerful position of undersecretary. Acheson lost no
time in re-orienting the Department regarding the four vitaj
areas: China, Korea, the Philippines and Japan. He assigned
John Carter Vincent as head of the Far Eastern Section, replac
ing the experienced and conservative Eugene Dooman. Vin
cent, as an advisor to the American Embassy in China, had
long shown and exercised his determined pro-Communist lean
ings regarding China. He called in John Stewart Service (who
shortly before this had been arrested in connection with stolen
documents in the famous Amerasia magazine case) to head
the important State Department information service. George
Atcheson, who had been sent back from China by Ambassador
Hurley for his then pro-Chinese Communist attitudes, was
now dispatched to Tokyo as one of MacArthur's advisors. Owen
Lattimore, standing quietly in the background, was a most vital
adjunct of this new and dominant radical group in the State
Department.

There was neither time nor opportunity for the new crowd

415

to change materially the context of the over-all Policy Directive
given to MacArthur on September 6. Nor did the group really
show its hand until Dean Acheson shortly blustered into pub
lic view with his outbreak against MacArthur's pronouncement
that the Japanese occupation had progressed so smoothly that
the number of American occupation troops might be reduced
to 200,000 within six months.

President Truman had backed MacArthur, and the Gener
al's Senate friends had shown their teeth against the new un
dersecretary, so that any immediate attempt on Acheson's part
to harass MacArthur too openly was postponed.

MacArthur was by no means unaware of the dangers and
stresses that faced the Far Eastern world. He had many lines
of information that led from Washington to his own office. A
continuous flow of visitors from America kept him alerted to
many of the secret moves within the Washington government
and administration. A number of his friends who came to see
him in Tokyo were deeply concerned over the state of affairs
and by the betrayal into Communist hands of the fruits of
Allied victory in both Europe and Asia.

His chief concern was his own problem of building the new
life in Japan and guarding it against attacks from without and
within. But China, too, was close to his heart, and he watched
with misgiving and despair as the China tragedy unfolded.

The first objective of the Acheson-Lattimore crowd in regard
to China had been to get rid of tough and wise Ambassador
Patrick J. Hurley and replace him with a man they could
handle. Their second and third tasks would be to win over
President Truman to their plan, and then quietly discredit Lt.
General Albert Wedemeyer and conceal the recommendations
he had made regarding the integrity of China and Korea.

Acheson planted political advisors George Atcheson, John
Service and other fellow-travelers at MacArthur's headquarters.
Their strategy would now be to peck away at MacArthur,
while their columnist, newspaper and radio friends in America
continued to denounce him and the Emperor. One of the
first steps would be quietly to force MacArthur to accept an
Allied Council that would include a strong Soviet representa
tive, who could thus get his foot in the door.

Early in October 1945, at the meeting of the Council of For
eign Ministers in London, Secretary of State Byrnes had his
own troubles with Molotov, Soviet Minister, who demanded
that an Allied Control be set up in Tokyo that would give
Russia an actual voice in decisions. British Foreign Minister
Sevan did not entirely disapprove of the Russian suggestion.
But Byrnes was able to check the move to turn the purely ad
visory Allied Council into a projected Control Council. How
ever, the final decision in the matter was put off until the
coming December meeting of the Foreign Ministers in Mos
cow.

When a twin plan of control, as a result of this later Moscow
meeting, was finally released, the Associated Press carried the
statement that General MacArthur had seen and did not object
jto the new Japan Control Plan before it was approved at Mos
cow. The report further stated that he had been kept informed
throughout the conference of matters dealing with Japan and
Far Eastern affairs, MacArthur, harassed and resentful, issued
a formal denial on the last day of December 1945:

The statement attributed to a Far Eastern Commission Officer
that I "did not object to the new Japan Control Plan before it
was approved at Moscow" is incorrect. On 31 October my final
disagreement was contained in my radio to the Chief of Staff
for the Secretary of State, advising that the terms "in my opinion
are not acceptable." Since that time, my views have not been
sought. Any impression which the statement might imply that
I was consulted during the Moscow conference is also incorrect.
I have no iota of responsibility for the decisions which were made
there.

I might add that whatever the merits or demerits of the plan,
it is my firm intent, within the authority entrusted to me, to
try to make it work. The issues involved are too vital to the
future of the world to have them bog down. With good will on
the part of those concerned, it is my fervent hope that there
will be no insuperable obstacles. As I said before, it is "my full
purpose to see it through."

Later an additional paragraph was issued by MacArthur that
read as follows:

417

General MacArthur never received any information or com
munication whatsoever from the Moscow conference during the
meeting, and did not even know Japan was being discussed until
he saw it announced in the daily press.

In Washington the newly created Far Eastern Commission
composed of Allied members was apparently to be the final
governing body, but Byrnes had slipped in a clause or two at
Moscow that to a great extent left the actual power in Ameri
can hands. Before any of the Allied Commission's instructions
reached MacArthur, they must first be passed by the Commis
sion, then drafted by the State Department, then approved by
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then finally sent on to the Supreme
Commander.

As a matter of fact the Commission included at various
times such distinguished American members as Major General
Frank McCoy and Nelson T. Johnson, former ambassador to
China. Early in January 1946 the Commission visited Tokyo,
and its contact with MacArthur was pleasant; and in general
its suggestions were most acceptable to him. Much time was
to elapse before it was discovered that the pinks had planted a
man squarely in the center of the commission as an advisor to
wise old General McCoy.

The four-power Allied Council for Japan, set up in Tokyo,
however, was a horse of another color. The United States,
China, the British Commonwealth and the Soviet Union were
represented, but the Russians had high hopes that through
their machinations within this Council they would be able to
take a strong hand in the actual occupation and begin their
tactics of Red infiltration. But when MacArthur addressed the
Allied Council at its opening session on April 5, 1946, he skill
fully reduced it to its actual status of a purely advisory capac
ity. Never once did he make a direct move of any kind against
the Russian delegation. The 185 members of the Soviet mis
sion in Tokyo were permitted to go and come as they pleased,
and no attempt to supervise them was ever undertaken. But
they shortly found they were utterly powerless to interfere.

MacArthur's initial talk at the Council was a masterpiece of
gentle but complete deflation:
418

I welcome you with utmost cordiality in the earnest anticipa
tion that, in keeping with the friendship which has long existed
among the several peoples represented here, your deliberations
throughout shall be governed by goodwill, mutual understanding
and broad tolerance. As the functions of the Council will be ad
visory and consultative, it will not divide the heavy administrative
responsibility of the Supreme Commander as the sole executive
authority for the Allied Powers in Japan, but it will make avail
able to him the several viewpoints of its members on questions
of policy and action. I hope it will prove to be a valuable factor
in the future solution of many problems.

. . . Any advice the Council as a whole or that of any of its
individual members may believe would be helpful to the Supreme
Commander will at all times be most welcome, and given the
most thorough consideration. As my manifold other duties will
not normally permit me to sit with the Council, I have designated
a deputy to act as Chairman thereof. To promote full public
confidence in its aims and purposes, it is advisable that all formal
sessions be open to such of the public and press as existing facil
ities will accommodate. There is nothing in its deliberations to
conceal, even from the eyes and ears of our fallen adversary.
Through such a practice of pure democracy in the discharge of
its responsibilities, the world will know that the Council's de
liberations lead to no secret devices, undertakings or commit
ments. . . .

The local Russian representatives found themselves com
pletely frustrated in their ambition first to gain some real
authority and -then to stir up as much trouble as possible. Mac-
Arthur's conduct had been meticulous. But any time that it
became necessary to check interference, he had a clear directive
to fall back on as the source of his assumptions.

Here in Tokyo it was quite a different situation that faced
the usually victorious and arrogant Russians, accustomed to
dictating and dominating the inter-Allied conferences and
then pushing through their treaty-breaking moves in Europe.

During the very earliest days of the occupation a matter of ut
most importance began quietly to come to a head. One of the
first Japanese callers at SCAP (Supreme Commander Allied

41Q

Powers) Headquarters in the Dai-Ichi Building in Tokyo was
Prince Konoye, who had replaced a militarist as Prime Minister
and on the previous April 7 had himself been succeeded by the
elderly Kantaro Suzuki. MacArthur received Konoye with cour
tesy and listened attentively while his worried guest blamed the
militarists for the war, with the additional excuse that the new
government had long feared the rise of Communism and social
unrest among the Japanese masses.

MacArthur replied that reform for the people was necessary,
and that there must be a strong minister of education who
would insist that the truth of the war be taught in the schools.
He pointed out that the world did not trust Japan, and that
only through education would she regain true respect*

In effect MacArthur made it clear that the Japanese govern
ment need no longer worry about the militarists, for he could
handle them. The government's problem now was to get the
truth to the civil population.

Exactly three weeks later Prince Konoye sought a second in
terview with MacArthur. Again he blamed the militarists and
the old threat of Communism for the country's downfall, but
he carefully exonerated both the Emperor and the great cap
italist groups of all responsibility. MacArthur promptly laid
out a four-point program that must be started at once: Liber
alize the constitution; extend suffrage to women; hold elec
tions; clear militarists out of all control.

When the Minister protested that the Cabinet completely
lacked the authority to accomplish these things, MacArthur
quietly pointed out that the entire Japanese government ex
isted by the Supreme Commander's sufferance, and that he
personally proposed to authorize all these changes. The Em
peror and the government must assist in every way possible.

Both visits apparently were preliminary moves for a visit by
the Emperor. A member of the Imperial Household quietly
broached the subject. MacArthur sent back word that the Em
peror's call would be most welcome, and that the General
would receive him informally at the Embassy and not at his
office. It would have humiliated the Emperor to require him
to come to his conqueror's office in a public building.

The Supreme Commander had his military secretary waiting
420

to meet the Emperor when he stepped out of his old-fashioned
black limousine at the entrance to the Embassy. The Emperor
was so emotionally disturbed that he was actually shaking.
Brigadier General Fellers saluted, and the Emperor almost
timidly reached for his hand. The officer greeted him most
cordially, and they walked side by side to the study. The
friendly reception had a marked effect. The Emperor realized
immediately that he faced no trying ordeal.

MacArthur had sent word that the Emperor was to bring his
own interpreter, and when the two entered the study the door
closed behind them. Only the three were there, and the whole
atmosphere was one of complete friendliness and good will.
They talked over certain phases and incidents in the long war
and other matters of immediate concern. The total result was
of immense significance.

Back in America the announcement of the meeting brought
violent reactions. The leftist hang-the-Emperor advocates in
sisted that instead of receiving him so courteously, MacArthur
should have had him tried and condemned.

It is possible that no single move by MacArthur during his
five years in Japan had a more profound effect on the Japanese
people than this. As the story of Hirohito's visit spread
throughout the Japanese islands, it seemed to put a final
stamp of complete acceptance of the realities of the occupation
and of the series of great reforms that were being initiated.
MacArthur had proved that he had no intention of publicly
humiliating their Emperor. The peopk everywhere began to
understand that the American Commander who had had such
a part in their defeat was now a true friend who was trying his
best to help them into a new way of life.

MacArthur never left any doubt for a single moment, how
ever, where the real authority lay. Again and again he quietly
broke up Japanese schemes and smart little dodges to circum
vent his wishes. At one point Foreign Minister Shigeru Yo-
shida called on him to announce that the Cabinet now headed
by Baron Shidehara had decided to resign, because of a direc
tive ordering a purge of totalitarian-minded Japanese officials.
After the protest registered by their resignations had been pub
licized, the Baron would duly succeed himself.

421

Mac Arthur did not raise his voice when he answered: "Mr.
Minister, you tell Baron Shidehara that there is no one for
whom I have greater respect or in whose ability to carry out
my directives I have greater confidence. However, if he and his
Cabinet resign tomorrow, it will be clear to the people of Ja
pan that they are unable to carry out my objectives. Baron
Shidehara may thereafter be acceptable to the Emperor as the
next Prime Minister, but he will not be acceptable to me."

Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, who had charge of
civil affairs on the Staff of SCAP, was present during the in
terview, and when he had walked down the hall with the
Minister, he asked him if it was quite clear what the General
meant. The Foreign Minister answered, "Too clear!"

The end of the Japanese war had brought many changes
within the high command in Washington. The Joint Chiefs of
Staff still functioned, but Admiral King was replaced by Ad
miral Nimitz, after King refused to agree to the amalgamation
of the Navy in a single Department of National Defense.

General Marshall asked for retirement, and in October 1945
he was replaced as Army Chief of Staff by General Eisenhower.
In the State Department the collaborators of Undersecretary
Acheson with their definite internationalist and pro-Red Chi
nese views had absorbed many of the key positions, particu
larly those dealing with the Far East, Russia and the United
Nations. A vast flight of left-wingers from the Office of War
Information (OWI), the Federal Economic Agency (FEA),
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Office of Inter-American
Affairs landed in the State Department. In the single year of
1945 some 5,000 outsiders infiltrated into this once conserva
tive Department and began to take over. The vital move gave
State a new and dangerous pink complexion.

[A one-time Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, J. Anthony
Panuch, several years later testified to a Senate Internal Secu
rity Sub-committee that the final design of this transfused ide
ology was "a socialized America in a world commonwealth of
Communist and Socialist states, dedicated to peace through col-
422

lective security, political, economic and social reform, and the
redistribution o£ national wealth on a global basis." Hundreds
of these new radical State Department recruits, he pointed out,
were shunted over the world, particularly into China and Ko
rea and into MacArthur's occupational machinery in Japan. The
extent of the damage they were able to do is beyond comput
ing. Most of their subversive work is deeply hidden in secret
State Department files or long ago has been taken out and de
stroyed. Even if a determined and sincere effort were to be
undertaken, it is doubted if the full story could ever be
pieced together. The stark results, however, stand out in all
their overpowering terror: a Red China, an uncertain For
mosa, a broken and almost helpless Korea, and an entire Far
East handicapped, weakened and at the mercy of a ruthless
international Communism.]

Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley flew back to Washington from
China. Partly because of his poor health and partly because
of his angry report criticizing the personal loyalty of certain of
his aides belonging to the State Department group of pro-
Communist Chinese, his immediate resignation, submitted No
vember 26, 1945, was accepted. General Marshall had been
relieved as Army Chief of Staff only six days when President
Truman sent for him and insisted that he must replace Hurley
in China. While his instructions were being formulated, Mar
shall was busy before a Senatorial committee that was investigat
ing the Pearl Harbor disaster — and in particular trying to jog
his usually keen memory into recalling where he was the night
before and the morning of December 7, 1941.

Who drew up Marshall's actual instructions in China still
remains a mystery, but it appears that they were partly writ
ten by John Carter Vincent, leftist head of the Far Eastern sec
tion of the State Department. The document was carefully
gone over both by the President and General Marshall, as well
as by Dean Acheson, Undersecretary of State. It was based on
the general proposition that the civil war must end, and there
must be unity and peace in China; Chiang Kai-shek must open
the inner circles of his Nationalist government to the repre
sentatives of Mao Tse-tung's Communist group, and Red Chi
nese troops must ultimately be incorporated into the armies of

423

a United China. This proved to be the exact sort of deadly ta
tics that gave the Chinese Communists the power ultimately t
weaken and render impotent the Nationalist government.

At this time the Chinese Communists held only a small pai
of China. On August 14, 1945, the day Japan surrendered,
Srno-Soviet pact was signed in Moscow in which Stalin pron
ised to recognize and sustain Nationalist China as the singl
government for the vast country. But as the Russian armie
in Siberia drove down into Manchuria and Northern Korea, i
was immediately evident that they were concerned primarily ii
helping to arm and direct the Chinese Communists, in thei
losing fight against Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government
Chiang's army had been wearing itself out for more than sevei
consecutive years in fighting the Japanese and at the same tim<
opposing the Chinese Communists.

The pro-Mao leftist crowd within the U. S. State Depart
ment, backed by the endless barrage of American writers anc
radio commentators who followed the line laid down by Lat
timore's Institute of Pacific Relations, had long before this de
dded who should win. The phrase "China unity" apparently
meant that Chiang Kai-shek's exhausted government was even
tually to be forced by both the United States and Russia
(with the United Nations' approval) to accept the collabora
tion of the Communist Chinese revolutionary government 01
to go down before it.

The unrealistic document that General Marshall took with
him to China pointed the way to this ultimate Communist
domination. He was met at the Shanghai airport by Lt. Gen
eral Albert C. Wedemeyer, military advisor to Chiang Kai-shek
and head of American armed forces in China. Wedemeyer
was experienced, astute and long-headed. He understood the
nuances embodied in Marshall's instructions and the impossi
bility of Chinese unity, Red style, save by completely giving
way to the Chinese Communists. He was aware that the Chinese
Reds were far from the simple and independent agrarian re
formers that the Lattimore-inspired writers and radio com
mentators and their misguided liberal friends had told Amer
ica they were.

But Marshall insisted that the Chinese Communists com-
424

prised only a minority political party that must be brought into
Chiang's government to attain unity. In his eyes the two op
posing Chinese groups were not too dissimilar from the two
great political parties in America.

Wedemeyer respectfully asked his old chief how he would feel
about the Republican party at home, for instance, if it were
armed to the teeth and was determined to gain control by force
and as the result of an open civil war. But apparently Mar
shall had been too well indoctrinated by Acheson's men to heed
the advice of one of the few senior American soldiers who un
derstood how dangerous it was to try to effect compromises or
make political deals with the Kremlin and its tools.

Marshall's first move was on January 13, 1946, when he ar
ranged a tentative truce with both armies frozen in their posi
tions of that moment. There was, however, a provision that
Nationalist troops could restore Chinese authority in certain
portions of Manchuria long held by Japan. The Chinese Com
munists soon broke the truce, and civil war was resumed. Shortly
after this Marshall flew home for consultation with the Presi
dent and with Acheson's left-wing advisors.

On his return in March of 1946 he was met at the Tokyo
airfield by MacArthur. Not once did Marshall mention his dif
ficult China assignment or discuss with MacArthur how the
turn of affairs there might affect the whole Far Eastern sit
uation and the problems involved in the occupation of Japan.
The isolation of MacArthur from the currents of policy in
Washington was deliberate and complete*

From the time of his arrival in China, Marshall exercised
rontinued pressure on the Nationalist government to bring in
the Communist groups. Finally, in July 1946, when he met
with no success, he declared an embargo on the sale of all
arms and munitions to both sides in China. Chiang Kai-shek's
struggle with the Reds called for large quantities of small arms
and ammunition as well as motor transport and aircraft. Now
he was completely cut off from fresh supplies*

But the embargo iiad little effect on the Chinese Commu
nists. The Soviets saw to it that they were well supplied with
arms and ammunition. The Russian agreement with America
had arranged that the surrender and disarming of the Japa-

425

nese forces in China and Manchuria was to be made to Chi
nese Nationalist representatives. But vast quantities of arms
and munitions were turned over by the Japanese to the busy
Russian troops, and the almost inexhaustible military dumps
were deliberately left unguarded by the Soviet troops so that
the Chinese Communist forces could supply themselves as they
wished.

Less than a month after Marshall's embargo was ordered,
President Truman, won over to the United-China-at-any-price
idea and to the left-wing conception of the Chinese Commu
nists as being simple agrarians, now issued an additional exec
utive order that China was not to be allowed to secure any
surplus American army weapons "which could be used to fight
a civil war."

This embargo was greatly responsible for the slow but cer
tain whittling away of the resistance of the Nationalist gov
ernment. The growing pressure of the Chinese Communist
forces was revitalized by the arms and munitions the Russians
furnished and by secret Red military aid and advice.

Lt. General Wedemeyer did everything in his power to off
set the working of the unfair embargo that denied aid to the
Nationalist government while Russia armed the Communist
elements. Even after the embargo was formally lifted in May
1947, the State Department managed to keep all real military
help from reaching the Nationalists by simply holding up ship
ping permits. Marshall, then Secretary of State, eventually or
dered Wedemeyer to make a full investigation of both the
Chinese and the Korean situations. The report Wedemeyer de
livered was an extraordinarily wise and far-seeing analysis, but
neither its findings nor its solemn warnings were followed.
Instead, its suggestions concerning the formation of a strong de
fense organization in South Korea were pigeonholed by order
of Secretary of State Marshall, who ordered General Wede
meyer to step out of the picture.

In April 1948 the Republican-controlled Congress voted the
sum of $125,000,000 for definite military aid for Nationalist
China. But once again the move was effectively scuttled
by the action of the State Department, and its collaborators in
the Department of Commerce, in holding up the delivery of
426

the desperately needed arms and ammunition. Months went
by until all chance of blocking the Moscow-supported Red Chi
nese advances had gone, and Chiang Kai-shek was actually
forced to flee to Formosa. Here from December 1949 on he was
virtually abandoned to his fate by China's oldest and most
trusted friend, the United States, while Britain and other im
portant United Nations members did their best to force Amer
ica to follow their lead and recognize the Chinese Communist
regime and do business with it.

Even during his first year in Japan MacArthur had no illu
sions regarding the nature of the forces that opposed him botk
in Washington and in Moscow. During the early days of the
occupation the State Department had sent out to him as a spe
cial advisor, with the rank of minister, George Atcheson, an
attractive career officer. Atcheson had been one of Ambassador
Patrick J. Hurley's people in China, but he had been won over
to the pro-Communist Chinese side by certain Americans who
opposed Grew. When Atcheson arrived in Tokyo, MacArthur
sent for him and showed him a letter he had received frankly
warning the Supreme Commander that Atcheson was a pink.

Atcheson's face reddened, but he made no attempt at dis
avowal when he handed the letter back to MacArthur.

"I just wanted you to see this so we can start off on a fair and
square basis," MacArthur explained without the slightest bit
terness. "The cards are now face up on the table."

Never again did MacArthur make any reference to the
letter, nor did he exclude Atcheson from policy meetings
or in any way show any resentment against him. Gradually
Atcheson began to understand the problems MacArthur faced
in Japan and to appreciate how mistaken he had been regard
ing the true ambitions of the Chinese Communists. Soon he
was as loyal and ardent a member of the MacArthur team as
there was in Tokyo.

On his way home to Washington for a conference Atcheson
lost his life in the mid-Pacific when his plane was forced down
through lack of gas. Investigation showed suspicious evidence

427

of sabotage at the Guam base, where the reserve gas tanks,
checked as full at Tokyo, had been emptied. MacArthur was
shocked and deeply grieved at the loss of Atcheson.

He was well aware that there were a number of Japanese
Communists working under the secret direction of the Soviet
mission in Tokyo. The legalizing of labor unions had been
one of the original tenets of MacArthur's occupation di
rectives, and it was evident that Red influences were pene
trating these circles, and that serious trouble might break out.
On May 20, 1946, he moved quickly to forestall what might
have become a most difficult situation. He realized that there
would be sharp reaction in America against his bold step, and
he met it head-on in his statement:

I find it necessary to caution the Japanese people that the
growing tendency towards mass violence and physical processes
of intimidation, under organized leadership, present a grave
menace to the future development of Japan. While every possible
rational freedom of democratic method has been permitted and
will be permitted in the evolution now proceeding in the trans
formation from a feudalistic and military state to one of demo
cratic process, the physical violence which undisciplined elements
are now beginning to practice will not be permitted to continue.
They constitute a menace not only to orderly government but
to the basic purposes and security of the occupation itself. . . .

Again MacArthur was attacked by large groups in America,
who were either unconscious of the intent of Red agents oper
ating over the world or were converts to their ideas. He per
sonally was unimpressed by their promises or their threats,
and on the first anniversary of the Japanese surrender he is
sued a lengthy statement that restated his own beliefs:

A year has now passed since the surrender terms were signed
on the battleship Missouri. Much has been accomplished since
then — much still remains to be done. But over all things and
all men in this sphere of the universe hangs the dread uncertainty
arising from impinging ideologies which now stir mankind. For
our homeland there is no question, and for the homelands of
others, free as are we to shape their own political order, there
is no question. But which concept will prevail over those lands
now being redesigned in the aftermath of war? This is the great
428

issue which confronts our task in the problem of Japan — a prob
lem which profoundly affects the destiny of all men and the
future course of all civilization. . . .

Should such a clash of ideologies impinge more directly upon
the reorientation of Japanese life and thought, it would be no
slight disadvantage to those who seek, as intended at Potsdam,
the great middle course of moderate democracy, that a people
so long regimented under the philosophy of an extreme con
servative right might prove easy prey to those seeking to impose
a doctrine leading again to regimentation, under the philosophy
of an extreme radical left. . . .

The goal is great — for the strategic position of these Japanese
Islands renders them either a powerful bulwark for peace or a
dangerous spring-board for war.

Carefully phrased as was this gentle rebuke against Com
munism, it drew the fire of the radical cabal in the State De
partment. In Japan there continued to be constant Red
pressure on the Japanese labor leaders to embarrass the new
government in every possible way. And there was no letup on
the interference from Moscow and the efforts to discredit Mac-
Arthur.

About the middle of September 1948, the Soviet ambassa
dor in Washington publicly assailed the occupation and
charged that MacArthur's policies were in direct violation of
Allied policy and the Potsdam Declaration. MacArthur did
not bother to answer directly this charge, but he used the op
portunity to explain his reaction to the Communist intrusions
in Asia and over the world. The final paragraph of his state
ment showed how fully aware he was of the rising danger. It
read:

Perhaps the most unsuccessful effort made anywhere by world
wide propaganda to instill communistic principles has been in
Japan. Here concepts leading to disorder, discontent and ultimate
chaos have made little headway. Despite frantic communistic
efforts to achieve the contrary, Japan continues calm, stable and
well ordered. The Communists and those who adhere to their
cause thus have a growing sense of frustration at their failure m
Japan. If they had their way they would repeat there the de
plorable state of affairs which they have brought about in certain
unhappy European centers.

429

Four months later the Soviet ambassador, using as his
sounding board the Far Eastern Commission, renewed his at
tacks on MacArthur. The General fully understood how all-im
portant it was to hold this strong Pacific outpost of Japan
against the constant Communist pressure and intrigue. He
decided that the time had arrived when he must fight back
openly and with everything he had. His statement was blunt
and concise:

* I have noted the statement of the Soviet Ambassador before
the Far Eastern Commission in derogation of American policy
and action with reference to Japan. It has little validity meas
ured either by truth or realism and can be regarded as mainly a
continuation of the extraordinary irresponsibility of Soviet propa
ganda. Its basic cause is the complete frustration of the Soviet
effort to absorb Japan within the orbit of the Communistic ide
ology. This effort has been incessant and relentless from the
inception of the Occupation.

It has sought by every means within its power to spread dis
cord and dissension throughout this country, reduced by the
disasters of war to an economy of poverty, originally threatening
the actual livelihood of the entire nation. It has hoped to so
mutilate the masses that there could be imposed through the re
sulting despair and misery a Godless concept of atheistic totali
tarian enslavement.

It has failed, due largely to the innate common sense and con
servatism of the Japanese people, the concepts of democratic
freedom implanted during the Occupation, and the progressive
improvement in living conditions. The resulting rage and frus
tration has produced, as in the present instance, an unbridled
vulgarity of expression which is the sure hallmark of propaganda
and of failure.

In a way it was almost a lone fight that he was makirfg. He
could not have been unconscious of the many roadblocks that
were constantly being erected against him. But he had his
own way of getting around them.

He knew, too, that there were powerful interests within the
United Nations that were far from happy over the sturdy new
Japan he was helping build. He was approaching the comple-
430

tion of the great task of a Japanese treaty that must be able to
withstand the demands and intrigues of nations and ideologies
concerned with their own selfish interests in the Far East and
with their problems of appeasing or actually fostering a
marching Communism.

A Red China was swiftly rising. Between the Sea of Japan
and the Yellow Sea lay the peninsula of Korea, divided, help
less and uncertain. It might well be next on the Red schedule
of doom.

Within the shadowy inner circle of Lake Success, where the
United Nations often met in confusion and uncertainty, there
were currents and tides that seemed to be moving not only
against the best interest of America, but against a free and dem
ocratic world. Proof was yet to come of the treacheries and
perfidies of innocent-looking groups and individuals within
the U. S. government who had long been betraying America
and poisoning the minds of the public and officials alike. Later
would break the great exposes of the Hiss trial and conviction;
the startling facts of Communist penetration eventually brought
out by the McCarthy and McCarran committees and later by
the Jenner and Velde investigations.

Shortly after his arrival in Tokyo, MacArthur's alert intelli
gence officer, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, unearthed
the sordid ramifications of the Sorge Red spy ring, which ex
tended from Moscow and Tokyo to Shanghai and Chung
king. The findings had proved beyond any doubt the extent
and enterprise of the Russian secret agents and their friends.
Certainly MacArthur and his G.H.Q. were alive to what was
going on in China and Korea.

Here in Tokyo he had by one means or another been able to
check through Washington friends and visitors the many at
tempts by forces within the administration to undermine his
stewardship. Time and again he had countered the efforts of
the Russians to force an entering wedge into Japan. He knew
that only by keeping a tight rein on the expanding Japanese
labor unions and the small radical native groups could he keep
Communist agents from fostering Red movements that might
lead toward bitter internal trouble and eventual civil war. It

431

was the usual Communist tactics: infiltrate, then divide and
rule. From the beginning of the occupation he had never
failed to nullify all such attempts.

He was fully conscious, too, of the scores of State Depart
ment liberals who had been dumped in his lap as advisors and
specialists. They had been specially chosen for the job, and
for the most part they were far more concerned with at least a
partial socialization of Japan and the accompanying humilia
tion of the Emperor than in building a sturdy, free state that
might be on the side of America in her ultimate fight for sur
vival. He was aware, as well, that radical converts and trouble
makers of the same type were being sent out from Washington
to muddy the waters of South Korea and to forestall her at
tempt to establish a free, united republic of Korea.

China was swiftly approaching the crisis in her long civil
war. It was all too evident to MacArthur that the Communist
sympathizers and the innocent dupes in the State Department
were materially aiding in the collapse and defeat of Chiang
Kai-shek's forces.

He could do little more than wait for the final tragedy of
Nationalist China's fall, just as he had been forced to wait
while doom closed about him in Manila in the late autumn
of 1941.

21

. . . WHILE WASHINGTON
LETS CHINA GO COMMUNIST

Despite the constant official tension and the eternal excursions
and alarms, the days and weeks slipped by pleasantly for the
little MacArthur family in Tokyo.
432

Life under the expansive roof of the American Embassy was
gracious and satisfactory. To a large degree the old daily rou
tine that MacArthur had begun back in the summer of 1919
when he had been appointed superintendent of West Point
was again in order. He had continued it on through his days
as Army Chief of Staff in Washington, and then after his mar
riage to Jean Faircloth in his years in Manila. Even as command
ing general of the Southwest Pacific theatre in Brisbane and
finally at the end of the bitter war campaigns, he had largely
followed his own quiet way of life here in Tokyo.

In attempting to describe his unique schedule it probably
would be fair to say that quite without realizing it he was
complete master of his own house and as well of all his waking
hours. The devoted Jean found her own full measure of hap
piness in taking care of her husband and their growing boy
Arthur. It never for a moment occurred to any of them, in
cluding himself^ that the Supreme Commander was not the
final figure of authority in regard to every detail of the life
about him. He did not demand it to be so; it simply was an ac
cepted fact.

In that observation there may be the key to his sometimes
misunderstood personality. Without consciously meaning to do
it, he quietly dominated everything that came within his orbit.
Yet in a strange way he was a complete creature of habit. His
own personal wants were very few. He cared little for food and
nothing for drinks. He enjoyed an occasional cigarette and
his pipes and a cigar at night. At no time in his life did he
have more than a handful of really intimate friends, and never
did he lean heavily on them. He was sentimentally attached
to a few men who had fought the wars with him and with
whom he enjoyed reminiscing, but they were not necessary
to his happiness or existence. His one true adult companion was
his beloved Jean.

He attended no parties, dinners or receptions, save at the
one or two rare moments when he looked in at some official
gathering of special significance. He worked seven days a week
at his office. During the early periods of the war and occupa
tion he was always on tap for any emergency business tha£
came up day or night. Jean, likewise, had little or no social

433

life, and her only public appearances were on occasions where
she semi-officially represented the General. Oddly enough, this
austere and secluded existence appealed strongly to the Japa
nese, In their eyes it gave to General MacArthur the distinct
touch of a superior and removed being, separated by several
degrees of caste from ordinary mortals.

When the day's work was done and dinner was over, he usu
ally found an hour's relaxation in an evening movie shown in
the large reception room at the Embassy, attended by the mem
bers of the household and any soldiers of the Embassy guard
who were off duty and cared to look in. Only on rare occasions
was there an outsider or house guest.

The General ordinarily arose a little before 8. He leisurely
shaved with one of a set of old-fashioned straight razors that his
father had given him as a West Point graduation present, and
then he methodically went through a few simple calisthenics.
He was still addicted to the worn and shabby black-gold-
and-gray cadet bathrobe that had been his companion through
the years. After he breakfasted with Jean, he read whatever
papers were at hand, and around 10 o'clock started for his of
fice. He usually remained there until somewhere between
1:30 and 2:00. Then he returned to the Embassy for lunch. If
there were no guests, he ate alone with Jean. But two or
three times a week there was a fairly large semi-official lunch
eon party for very important people of one kind or another
from Stateside. All his official entertaining was at these luncheon
parties.

After the business of eating was ended, the General would
push back his chair and embark for an hour or longer on an
uninterrupted discourse on some phase of the occupation or
the Far Eastern problem or the latest Russian move. These in
formal sessions seemed to give him a chance to let off steam
and to further the development of his own ideas and conclu
sions. Almost invariably his guests left with the definite im
pression that they had been listening to one of the profound
and brilliant intellects of the time. It was not unusual for men
who had arrived in Japan bent on finding proofs for their pre
conceived theories and criticisms regarding the Japanese occu-
434

pation or the Supreme Commander to be completely won over
by this after-luncheon magic.

After the party had been dismissed, the General invariably
went to his bedroom and enjoyed an hour's sleep. Then he re
turned to his office, usually to remain at work until 7 or 8 or
even later. It was a killing schedule for the members of his
immediate staff, but they did little grumbling. Their affection
for their chief was expressed in loyalty and devotion almost
beyond measure.

The General's evening meal was usually simple and almost
frugal. Jean would have supper with him regardless of the
hour, and after the meal they would usually take their regular
seats in the front row of the chairs arranged before the moving
picture screen. The General's personal choice still remained
the westerns, but he found relaxation in almost any action film.

After the movie he and Jean would usually spend an hour or
two alone, and then he would pace back and forth across the
wide reception room and into the great hall. He had a clear
path of more than 100 feet and as he walked his beat he usu
ally gave wings to his thoughts, laying out the immediate prob
lems that faced him. "Thinking out loud" comes the nearest to
interpreting this nightly pacing.

Jean would almost literally see to it that he was tucked in
bed, open the windows and then check in on Arthur. The Gen
eral was doing exactly as he wanted to do, and the same thing
could be said about his wonderful wife. She had found her
complete role in looking after the man and the boy to whose
comfort and happiness she had dedicated her life.

From the days in Manila in the late 19305, when the war
clouds began to settle down over the China Sea, the General
had given up his ancient habit of long hours of reading before
he went to sleep. The library of his penthouse atop the Ma
nila Hotel had been lined with books from his father's own
large and carefully chosen collection. But he no longer felt the
driving need for concentrated reading. Besides most of his
favorite military and historical books had been lost in the war.

When the decision had been made on the afternoon of
Christmas Eve in 1^41 that the military command and the Phil-

435

ippine government would transfer immediately to Corregidor,
the lovely penthouse with all its books and silver, its pictures
and priceless mementos was left in the care of the Fili
pino houseboy, Castro.

At the time the city was recaptured in March and April
1945, the Manila Hotel was found burned and completely
gutted. MacArthur had hardly settled in one of the civilian
homes still standing, when Castro came to headquarters and in
broken English explained that he had something that belonged
to the General,

One of the various enemy dignitaries who had used and
abused the penthouse had been an official from the Japanese
Foreign Office, who eventually had changed residences to one
of the fashionable homes on the Luneta. The old MacArthur
houseboy had gone along with him, his eye on a heavy box of
silver that the Japanese diplomat had taken. The loyal servant
had quietly put the long, heavy box in a darkened space under
the stairs, well behind cases of documents and food. When the
diplomat had hurriedly pulled out shortly before the Ameri
cans landed on Luzon, the special box had been overlooked. It
was this priceless cache that was now turned over to the Gen
eral in Manila.

Both he and Jean accepted the fact that the books in the li
brary that had meant such a warm, intimate touch with the
father would never be recovered. However, two or three small
batches of books that had been sequestered by hotel servants
began to appear.

And later in Tokyo the same houseboy who had promptly
joined up with the family in Manila accompanied Jean to Ja
pan. Once settled in the Embassy, he took over his old job. One
day late in the fall of 1945, he came to Jean with a newspaper
that had a picture of a Japanese general who had just been
taken into custody in Tokyo as a war criminal. The loyal Cas
tro was burning with anger and excitement as he jabbed at
the picture and insisted that he was one of the looters.

" 'At him! 'at him!'' he insisted. "He General in Manila ho
tel. He took! He took!"

Jean and Colonel Sidney Huff called a car and with the serv
ant drove to the house where the Japanese general had been ar-
436

rested. Inside they found a hundred or more precious mili
tary books looted from MacArthur's library in Manila.

MacArthur's personal relation with the key members of his
G.H.Q. staff had long been a matter of considerable specu
lation and of some adverse criticism. He had at one and the
same time been accused of being too loyal and easy going with
his official family and of being too little concerned with their
rewards and advancement.

Apparently he had always taken a good deal for granted.
During his years as Army Chief of Staff in Washington, in the
years in Manila and during the war and occupation periods,
he had been fully absorbed with matters of the highest im
portance to the armed services and often to the very life of his
country. He personally thought out most of the great moves
and decisions involved in his responsibilities. The members of
his staff were primarily occupied in implementing them. He
was completely and exhaustingly absorbed by the larger as
pects of military strategy and statesmanship.

To many who knew him well he seemed to have little time
left for the people who served him. The problems he faced
used up the last ounce of his time and energy. For the ten
years beginning in 1940 and even during most of the previous
decade he struggled against terrific odds. As a consequence he
left the routine of running his headquarters and its many de
tails in the hands of his chief of staff. This included the very
sensitive matter of promotions and decorations for his senior
commanders and for the important members of his headquar
ters staff. To many critics it seemed that MacArthur failed to
appreciate how much these personal matters meant to the offi
cers serving under him and how badly they were often handled
by his responsible subordinates.

Nor did he seem to be greatly concerned over rifts and angry
feuds within his own personal staff. There were so many en
ervating problems on a seemingly higher level that called for
his personal decisions that the human equation often was ig
nored or pushed aside. He had removed himself largely from
all unnecessary contacts, and the barriers raised to relieve him
from what appeared to be the small items involving such
things as men's pride and rewards often reflected against him.

437

There can be little doubt that there were injustices and
oversights, and certainly in a number of individual cases there
was real bitterness left. For instance, many of the friends of
Lt. General Eichelberger felt that a grave injustice had been
done him when he did not receive his fourth star. Eichelberger
had gone out to MacArthur in the summer of 1942 as a lieu
tenant general and had fought through all the campaigns from
Buna to Mindanao. During the first three trying years of the
Japanese occupation he had commanded the Eighth Army. At
the end of more than six years of loyal and magnificent serv
ice in the Pacific he had retired and returned to the States
with the same three stars on his shoulder. In the summer of
1954, in retirement, he was awarded his fourth star by the
Army.

In the entire Southwest Pacific Command only Lt. Generals
Kenney and Krueger and Vice Admiral Kinkaid received their
fourth stars. Additional high promotions may have been pre
vented by roadblocks erected in the Pentagon against Mac-
Arthur and his theatre.

In 1946 Sutherland, his chief of staff who had been with him
even before Bataan and Corregidor, returned to America and
was replaced by Major General Dick Marshall who had long
been deputy chief. Eventually Marshall retired to become
superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, and he was
succeeded by Major General Stephen J. Chamberlain, who had
served MacArthur as G-g through the war from his arrival in
Australia. Subsequently Chamberlain was replaced by Major
General Paul John Mueller.

As the old Bataan gang — a tight little corporation of great
pride and zeal — along with other members of his intimate staff
who had been with him for a number of years retired or were
relieved, MacArthur found himself leaning more and more on
Courtney Whitney, who had joined his staff in Brisbane in 1943
as a colonel and finally was promoted to major general. Six
months after Whitney's arrival in the Pacific he was made chief
of the civil affairs at G.H.Q. He had resigned from the Regular
Army in 1927 and for a number of years had practiced law in
Manila.

On the long road back to the Philippines from Australia
438

Whitney had been assigned to the section of the staff that han
dled in its office at G.H.Q. the operations of the Filipino gueril
las. Once back in the Philippines, he was given the civil section
dealing with the many problems of local reconstruction and
later with delicate and important civil affairs in the Japanese
occupation. He had to a most unusual degree a talent for
translating to paper MacArthur's wishes and thoughts, and he
became extremely valuable in the important task of writing
out statements and announcements that gave the exact shade
of meaning the General desired.

Here in Tokyo during his years as Supreme Commander Mac-
Arthur came into complete and final maturity. Almost 20
years before these Tokyo days he had reached the top rung of
the peace-time military ladder as Army Chief of Staff. Certainly
no additional military honors remained for him to gain. He
then graduated from soldiering into the higher echelon of
statesmanship.

As a matter of fact, his service ever since 1935, when he em*
barked on his handicapped and misunderstood career as mil
itary advisor to President Quezon, had cast him into the
definite and sustained role of soldier-statesman. Part of his
formal task with Quez6n was actually called "diplomatic rep
resentation," and his influence on the thinking of both the Phil
ippine commonwealth leaders and the Filipino people was of
immense importance.

This statesman side of his duties in Australia, and then again
in the liberation of the Philippine Islands, was almost as valu
able to his country as his purely military victories. With the
momentous decision to send him to Japan as the proconsul of
the wrecked and helpless nation, he stepped into a position that
carried with it the personal responsibility for the life or death
of American interests in these key islands of the Pacific. The
subsequent moves he made and somehow was able to get Wash
ington to accept had been decided on the highest moral and
patriotic plane.

Issues automatically became moral issues, his decisions rest-

439

ing on the simple test of what is right and what is wrong. Plain
truth and honor had almost been lost sight of by many during
the years when America was being led into the war largely by
the pressure of deceptions and downright lies.

But the ancient verities still remained the basis of the great
decisions that MacArthur made. Their simple honesty was the
outward expression of his own moral character.

Strong as had been his personal ambitions to be at the head
in every endeavor, there had also been planted deep within
him a high character standard from which there could be no
deviation. The definitely superior mind he inherited had been
supported and improved by his own energy and singleness of
purpose. These qualifications tended to mark him with certain
of the attributes of genius. As the years went by and his
responsibilities increased, he never betrayed the West Point
motto that had sustained him from his cadet days — "Duty,
Honor, Country."

It was unfortunate that in the eyes of many people certain
little human weaknesses apparently blurred the hard and rigid
outlines of this unusual soldier. His need for study and -medita
tion and for a quiet existence where he could work out his own
solutions and decisions often made him liable to imputations of
snobbishness and aristocratic superiority. He was accused of
being aloof and lacking the common touch.

Apparently he could never quite reconcile his inherent shy
ness to the roar of the crowd. In his mature years he wanted
persona] success only when it coincided with the success of his
country; and his country always came first. He was sensitive to
criticism, but there was a tough fiber in his character that made
him invincible and incorruptible. As was evidenced in his
handling of beaten Japan, he harbored no revenge but rather
a broad humanitarianism and an understanding of the human
needs of these broken and helpless people.

It was with deepest concern that MacArthur watched the grad
ual deterioration of the Nationalist government in China,
brought about by America's lack of any intelligent long-range

440

policy and by the deliberate plotting of Communist agents and
their followers in high position in Washington and elsewhere.
He had never met Chiang Kai-shek, but he looked upon him
as a true comrade-in-arms and a thoroughly devoted Chinese
patriot. He knew the details of the Generalissimo's unbroken
fight against Russian-inspired Communist intrusion since the
early igsos, and he knew that Moscow considered Chiang Kai-
shek as its No. i enemy.

From 1937 to V-J day the Generalissimo had been fighting
for his life against Japan, and never for a day had he suc
cumbed to any outside pressures that would compromise the
integrity of his country. During these years he had to fight also
the Communist Chinese armies, which had never aided him by
making a single decisive move against the Japanese invaders.
Always he must fight these two enemies, who, oddly enough,
had a bitter and eternal hatred for each other. Always it was
the long arm of the Kremlin that helped set the evil forces
moving against Chiang Kai-shek.

Since the turn of the century America had been the one
permanent and unselfish friend that China could depend
upon. John Hay's Open Door Policy had stood the test of time.
Hay, as Secretary of State under President McKinley, had been
in the forefront of the little group of men who at the turn of
the century had remained steadfast in their belief not only
that did much of America's destiny lie in the western Pacific
but that her well-being rested to a large degree on her close
friendship with China. A distinguished list of statesmen fol
lowed this political philosophy— Theodore Roosevelt and Elihu
Root, Senators Lodge and Beveridge, Herbert Hoover and
Charles Evans Hughes and, in the earlier days of his adminis
trations, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The pattern of Stalin's global strategy for ultimate Com
munist world domination had assumed dangerous proportions
by the early spring of 1948. The Soviets' immediate designs
in Europe had been accomplished with terrifying complete
ness. The bankruptcy of the Roosevelt-Churchill policies, fol
lowed by the failure of Truman and his American advisors to
oppose Stalin at Potsdam in July 1945 had resulted in the com
plete betrayal of Poland, the division of Germany and the iso-

441

lation of Berlin. No effective opposition was made to the brutal
conversion into Soviet satellites of the Eastern European bor
der states from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
There had been nothing subtle or mysterious about these
deadly Red operations; the confused and often leftist-advised
American statesmen simply had not the experienced intel
ligence, the long-range view or the courage to demand a
show-down with Stalin, while America's military strength was
at its maximum and her power beyond question. The dead
hand of Roosevelt pulled the strings at Potsdam in July 1945,
while Red influences were broadening in Washington.

Early in March of 1948 MacArthur sent to a House committee
an answer to a request for his own opinion of the Far East sit
uation. It was almost in the nature of a declaration of faith.
Part of his lengthy statement read:

Because of deep-rooted racial and cultural and business ties,
we are prone to overconcentrate on happenings and events to
our East and to underemphasize the importance of those to our
West. America's past lies deeply rooted in the areas across the
Atlantic, but the hope of American generations of the future
to keep pace with the progress of those of the past lies no less in
the happenings and events across the Pacific. While fully avail
ing ourselves of the potential to the East, to our western horizon
we must look both for hope of a better life through yet untapped
opportunities for trade and commerce in the advance of Asiatic
races, and threat against the life with which we are even now
endowed. For beyond . that horizon upon the outcome of the
ideological struggles to which opposing forces are now engaged
and the restoration of political, economic and social stability,
rests war or peace, assurance or threat, hope or fear.

It was in the latter part of 1947 that a new element entered
the Tokyo scene in a definite attempt to boom MacAr
thur again for President. The campaign that shortly got under
way could hardly be expected to enhance MacArthur's popu-
442

larity with the men who were in control of the Pentagon and
the administration, and particularly with President Truman,
who was interested in succeeding himself. The changes in the
high command that shortly took place involved the succession
to General Eisenhower as Army Chief of Staff by General
Bradley on February 15, 1948, and the replacement a year later
of General Marshall as secretary of state by Dean Acheson.

Probably MacArthur had no exaggerated idea of his own
chances in the coming Presidential campaign, but he did not
feel he should evade any demand made on him. On March 9,
1948, he issued a statement in which he made clear his own
position. It read:

I have been informed that petitions have been filed in Madison,
signed by many of my fellow citizens of Wisconsin, presenting
my name to the electorate for consideration at the primary on
April 6. I am deeply grateful for this spontaneous display of
friendly confidence. No man could fail to be profoundly stirred
by such a public movement in this hour of momentous import,
national and international, temporal and spiritual. While it
seems unnecessary for me to repeat that I do not actively seek
or covet any office and have no plans for leaving my post in
Japan, I can say, and with due humility, that I would be recreant
to all my concepts of good citizenship were I to shrink because
of the hazards and responsibilities involved from accepting any
public duty to which I might be called by the American people.

The fact that the Wisconsin primary did not turn out too
favorably for the MacArthur enthusiasts obviously made little
difference to the General The following day there was some
concern among his political friends whether he "would now
withdraw his name from future consideration. He met the is
sue head-on with the following cable:

p April 1948

To: Mrs. Mary E. Kenney,
1746 Harwood Avenue,
Lincoln 2, Nebraska.

Thank you for your message. You may be sure that my state
ment of March 9 that I was available for any public duty to
which I might be called by the American people was not de
limited to any particular political test but was a restatement of

443

a concept of the responsibility of citizenship on which I then
stood, I now stand, and I shall continue to stand as long as I live.

MACARTHUR.

The national MacArthur campaign for the Republican
nomination was making small progress in its conflict with the
machine-controlled candidacy of Governor Dewey when Mac-
Arthur was invited to appear in Washington before the Senate
Appropriations Committee. In a few weeks the nominating
conventions would open, and a number of friends in America
were urging upon him the idea that a great home-coming wel
come, skillfully arranged at the right moment, might swing
the Republican nomination in his favor.

MacArthur would have none of it. How sensitive he was to
making any possible political use of his formal invitation to
appear before the Senate Committee was indicated in his an
swer to Senator Bridges in which he turned down the invita
tion. His statement dated May 29, 1948, concluded with the
following paragraphs:

... As to this theatre, I have already, directly and through
representatives, expressed my views on such details and there is
little that I could add to what has already been said thereon and
is now before the Congress.

Apart from this, it would be peculiarly repugnant to me to
have it felt that I sought to capitalize to political advantage,
as many have frankly urged, the public goodwill which might
manifest itself upon my first return to American soil following
the Pacific war. For such goodwill would find its inspiration in
the victory which crowned our Pacific war effort to which count
less gallant Americans, living and dead, contributed by unfailing
and invincible devotion. Usurpation of such goodwill by me to
serve a political end would be a shameful breach of their faith
and a betrayal of the mutual trust on which was erected the
cornerstone to the Pacific victory. . . .

The subsequent July convention in Philadelphia brought a
distressing awakening to many of his followers. The memory
of the post-midnight treatment the Dewey machine meted out
to the frail and pathetic figure of General Wainwright as he
seconded the nomination of General MacArthur was not to be
quickly forgotten.
444

There can be little doubt that there was a steady hardening
of the opposition against MacArthur in the inner circles of the
administration, including the White House, the Department
of State and the Pentagon as the crisis in the China situation
advanced, and the Korean problem became more threaten
ing.

Underneath the seeming calm in the exchange of cables
and directives beween MacArthur and the men who were run
ning affairs in Washington, there was brewing an intense and
bitter personal conflict that sooner or later would almost cer
tainly burst out into the open.

By the close of 1949 the plot succeeded: China was lost
to America and the free world. The once mighty bulwark
against the advancing Russian Empire was now a Moscow sat
ellite. Some 400,000,000 Chinese had been swept from the orbit
of the democratic world into the Communist international net.
By the fait accompli the situation of both Formosa and Korea
became desperate.

At the Cairo Conference in late 1943 Roosevelt, Churchill
and Chiang Kai-shek had mutually pledged that with victory
against Japan "in due course Korea shall become free and inde
pendent/' Formosa was allocated to the Republic of China.
When the Japanese made their offer of surrender on August
10, it was hurriedly arranged in the Pentagon that Russia would
receive the surrender of the Japanese troops north of the 38th
parallel in Korea, and the Americans would do the same be
low the line. This 3 8th parallel was thus accepted as the line of
demarcation between the American and Russian zones of sur
render if and when victory came.

On August 12, six days after Russia declared war, her Sibe
rian troops broke across the Korean frontier. The Japanese
surrender came three days later, but Russia continued her
march across Korea and drove deeply into Manchuria as well.

Three weeks after the Russians crossed the northern Korea
border, Lt. General John R. Hodge hurriedly disembarked in
southern Korea with the first elements of his U. S. Corps. Im-

445

mediately there was confusion, uncertainty and grave trouble.
The Russian troops to the north were arrogant and uncoop
erative, and shortly afterward all communication between the
two zones was severed.

It was obvious from the start that the Soviet occupation forces
in Korea knew exactly what they wanted to do and had drawn
complete plans how to do it. All during the Japanese war Ko
rean escapees had been gathering in Siberia, and from these
Koreans, who had in the meantime been Communist-indoctri
nated, the Russians had organized a fair-sized army. This
group became the nucleus of the native North Korean Red
Army, and it was now rapidly expanded in the rugged, moun
tainous country above the gSth parallel.

Anti-Red opposition was promptly crushed, and local Com
munist governments were set up under the full control of the
Soviet representatives. The infiltration of Communist agents
into South Korea followed at once, with assassination and ter
ror as their principal weapons.

Arrayed against this Russian plan to turn all Korea into a
Communist satellite, General Hodge and his troops in South
Korea operated under an unrealistic and flabby series of direc
tives sent out from Washington. In 1947 Lt. General Wede-
meyer had been ordered to look into the situation, but his
final report with its key recommendation for a South Korean
force capable of guaranteeing freedom was pigeonholed. Soon
a swarm of experts from the State Department arrived in South
Korea. Many of them should actually have been under the pay
and patronage of Moscow.

As far back as December 1945, at the Big Three Conference
in Moscow, a Korean trusteeship for five years was agreed upon
by Russia, Britain and the United States. But five months
later negotiations for a unified country completely broke down,
and the middle border was closed by the Communists. A year
and a half later the United Nations set up a Korean Commis
sion empowered to hold nationwide elections over the whole
country, but Communists in North Korea not only boycotted
the elections but sealed the border even tighter. On August
25, 1948, the Communists held elections within North Korea
for what they had proclaimed back in May as the People's Re-
446

public of North Korea. The well-supervised free elections in
South Korea took place ten days after the rival Russian-dom
inated state was announced. On September 9 Dr. Syngman
Rhee was inaugurated in Seoul as President of the Republic
of Korea.

Almost immediately after the inauguration, at which Mac-
Arthur made the principal address, the United Nations in
structed all foreign troops to leave Korea. It was a directive
made to order for the Soviets. They had not only raised,,
trained and equipped a force of 125,000 native North Korean
Communists, but they had brought in thousands of Red Ko
reans who had been serving in the Chinese Communist armies.
More and more North Korean troops were enlisted, until even
tually the army numbered 187,000 well-equipped and trained
Red Koreans. They were furnished ample Russian-built artil
lery, 173 tanks and 200 planes. On January i, 1949, the Rus
sian troops pulled out, for they were no longer needed to
guarantee the success of the Red plans.

Six months after these Russian forces had been removed
from the north the last of the American troops left for home.
An American military mission of a scant 450 army personnel
responsible directly to the Department of State was left be
hind to carry on the tail end of the very possibly insincere
American effort ' to prepare the Republic to meet the ad
vancing threat of Communist North Korea. A training school
for officers had been established, small arms plants had been
opened, and American military equipment, at one time valued
at $100,000,000, was used in arming a force of some 96,000
South Korean soldiers, roughly one-half the number of the
North Korean force. Unfortunately there was an almost com
plete lack of tanks and anti-tank weapons, heavy artillery,
fighter planes, proper signal equipment and the innumerable
items that go into the making of even a small modern army.

In October 1949 the U. S. Congress passed a Military Assist
ance Act appropriating $10,000,000 for South Korea. But once
again the State Department delayed interminably over the ex
port permits so that only a dribble of the badly needed sup
plies ever actually arrived.

The do-nothing policy apparently had the support of Owen

447

Lattimore, who had very clear-cut ideas of just what he wanted
to happen in Korea. On July 17, 1949, he wrote in the radical
New York Daily Compass: "The thing to do is let South Korea
fall, but not to let it look as if we pushed it."

The following month Lattimore was requested by the State
Department to submit a memorandum regarding Korea. He
suggested that "South Korea is more of a liability than an as
set," and that the "United States should disembarrass itself
as quickly as possible from its entanglements in South Korea."

With the formation of the Republic of Korea and the with
drawal of American Army forces, MacArthur's official concern
with Korea was ended. He had never actually been in control
of the occupation. From August 15, 1948, the doomed little
country was under the complete charge of the State Depart
ment. MacArthur's headquarters were not even favored with
such intelligence reports as were secretly issued.

His own experienced intelligence section under Major Gen
eral Willoughby was well aware of the distinct possibility of
an attack by the North Korean Communists during the spring
or summer of 1950. Civil war might be postponed until fall
when the rice crop had been harvested, but it was fairly clear
that it was only a matter of time before hostilities would begin.

Already the complete liquidation of Chiang Kai-shek's re
sistance to Communist encirclement on the continent had oc
curred. On December 9, 1949, the last legions of the
Generalissimo were forced to retreat to the island of Formosa,
100 miles or so off the mainland of China.

Around Christmas time of this tragic year of 1949, MacAr
thur's attention was drawn to a statement regarding Formosa
sent up by the State Department under date of December 23
to its representatives abroad. On January 3, 1950, a friendly
United Press reporter in Tokyo managed to secure a copy of
the statement and immediately cabled a sensational dispatch
to America. The news story read in part:

The United States State Department has notified its attaches
that the loss of Formosa, island redoubt of the Chinese National
ists, to the Communists was to be anticipated.

The Department said the public must be sold on the idea that

448

the island is of no strategic value in order to prevent the loss
o£ prestige at home and abroad. . . .

The document said all available material should be used "to
counter false impressions" that the retention of Formosa would
save the Chinese Government, and that its loss would damage
seriously the interest of either the United States or of other
countries opposing communism.

"Without evidencing undue preoccupation with the subject/'
it continued, "emphasize as appropriate any of the following
main points.

"Formosa is exclusively the responsibility of the Chinese Gov
ernment. Formosa has no special military significance."

The unfavorable publicity given the apparently secret plan
tapered off until June 2, 1950, when Senator Robert A. Taft
in a formal speech insisted that Formosa should be protected
from Communist invasion by the U. S. Seventh Fleet. Three
days later President Truman bluntly declared that no more
military aid or assistance would be given to the Chinese Na
tionalists there.

On January 12 in a major address before the National Press
Club in Washington Secretary of State Acheson virtually wiped
Formosa off the American map. He called it outside "our de
fense perimeter/' South Korea had likewise been excluded
from the American defense outposts. His words could be in
terpreted as meaning that America was no longer interested in
Formosa or Korea.

MacArthur's own Eighth Army in Japan had been reduced
until it consisted of four understrength divisions made up
largely of recruits whose battle training had been grievously
limited by the nature of their occupational duties. The Sev
enth Fleet still remained in Western Pacific waters, and a mod
erate-sized Far East Air Force, under Lt. General George Strate-
meyer, was based on Okinawa and Japanese home airfields.

MacArthur's attempts to expose the overwhelming Commu
nist threats in his part of the world appeared almost pathetic
against the general apathy and the inspired pro-Communist
propaganda that continued in America. It is clear that MacAr-
thur sensed through some strange foreboding that a storm of

449

events was about to sweep down on these western Pacific
shores.

Willoughby's special intelligence reports on Korea during the
spring days of 1950 told of the unrest along the g8th parallel
and of obvious preparations for a large-scale invasion by the
North Korean Reds. There had been much border trouble, but
most of it centered on the rice raids that the Korean Commu
nists made now and again into the country below the 3 8th
parallel For several months there had been rumors of a com
ing North Korean Communist invasion, but as the pleasant
June days drifted by, there seemed a bare hope that the war
might be postponed.

John Foster Dulles was spending some time in Tokyo,
working with MacArthur and Whitney on the final terms of
the coming Japanese Treaty. Near the end of June Dulles flew
to Korea for a quick look around before he returned to Amer
ica.

On June 22 Dulles motored from Seoul toward the closed
border along the g8th parallel. His swift survey caused him
no great alarm. To his militarily inexperienced mind the
South Koreans seemed fairly well prepared to meet any attack
from the north. Neither Dulles nor the South Korean leaders
apparently realized how inferior in training, equipment and
numbers the democratic forces were to their Communist
neighbors north of the gSth parallel. It was, however, fully
known to MacArthur and his headquarters.

At 4:00 on Sunday morning three days later thousands of
Red Korean troops poured over the border, overwhelming the
South Korean advance outposts and moving southward with
a speed and power that swept aside all opposition.

MacArthur was just rising on this tragic morning of June 25
when the first news of the attack was brought to him. The only
immediate military obligation involving his own forces had to
do with the evacuation of 2,000 American and United Na
tions personnel in the area of the Korean Republic.

He must have recalled that it was on a Sunday morning,
nine and a half years before this, that the Japanese invading
planes first loosed their bombs on Luzon.
450

22

A WAR

HE WAS NOT PERMITTED TO WIN

At dawn on Sunday, June 25, 1950 (Far Eastern time), eight
divisions of North Korean Communist armies broke across the
gSth parallel The columns on the west lunged swiftly toward
the capital city of Seoul, 30 miles away.

At the same time other Red forces drove down the railroad
and highways on the east coast and through the roads and trails
in the mountainous center of the peninsula. The South Ko
reans suffered from an almost total lack of anti-tank guns and
heavy artillery. The marching columns of the North Koreans,
plentifully supplied with tanks and artillery, soon turned the
entrenched lines of the confused South Koreans into little more
than papier-mach6 defenses.

Frantic calls for help from President Rhee's tottering Re
public were sent to Washington, Lake Success and Tokyo.

President Truman hurried back to Washington from Inde
pendence, Missouri, while plans were being made to call a
hurried meeting of the United Nations Council Reverting now
to Washington time, at 3 Sunday afternoon the Council adopted
a resolution declaring that North Korea had committed a
breach of peace and that hostilities must end at once and the
North Koreans withdraw their forces. Fortunately the Soviet
Union had been boycotting the Council because of the con
tinued presence of the representative of Nationalist China.

Sunday night, Washington time, the President and his ad
visors from the Pentagon and the State Department decided to
use American ships and planes to evacuate American civilians
in South Korea, and to give President Rhee arms. MacArthur
was immediately informed of the decision. At the same Blair

451

House meeting it was argued that Formosa should be guarded
and isolated from the war. The final decision was delayed for
24 hours.

The following night MacArthur was cabled that he was in
command of any military action taken. So far his opinions had
not been asked, nor had he volunteered any suggestions. At a
meeting that same evening the decision was reached to use
American air and naval forces, but there was to be no action
above the 3 8th parallel. After the close of this meeting Louis
Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff hurried to the Pentagon
and a call was placed to MacArthur over the scrambled-voice
telephone. MacArthur was personally given the new orders. The
following noon the President announced the decision to the
world.

Wednesday there was only bad news from Korea. MacArthur
scrupulously relayed such reports as he received. Two South
Korean divisions had disintegrated, and the following day
MacArthur was permitted to make a front-line inspection. The
weather report of conditions over Japan and Korea was about
as bad as it could be, but early in the morning Major Tony
Storey, pilot of MacArthur's Bataan, phoned the Tokyo Em
bassy that the low ceiling was breaking over Korea and there
was a chance they might make it. MacArthur said to get ready
for take-off.

It was a risky landing Storey made on a dangerous airfield
near Suwon, to the south of Seoul. During the next <ji/2
months he was to fly MacArthur 17 times to Korea, and always
there were hazards to face. The General had complete faith
in Storey's judgment and hunches, and as long as the pilot
was willing to take a long chance he never hesitated.

After an eight-hour inspection of the battlefront MacArthur
was certain that the South Koreans were utterly doomed unless
ground help quickly arrived. It was the only thing that could
save them, and even that was problematical. A near panic had
been brought on during the early withdrawal of South Korean
forces across the broad Han river just below Seoul when key
bridges were blown up leaving thousands of troops still on the
north bank. If anything was to be done to save the desperate
situation, it must be done at once.
452

MacArthur flew back to Tokyo, and around 3 in the morn
ing of June 30, Washington time, held a long telecon conver
sation with Chief of Staff Collins and high Pentagon officers.
He outlined the situation as he had just seen it, and answered
questions. He was prepared to deliver only a professional mil
itary analysis regarding the desperate outlook. He was giving
no advice and suggesting no high policy decisions — save that
only American troops could salvage the desperate situation.
Secretary of the Army Pace was immediately informed.

At 4:57 that morning Secretary Pace awakened President Tru
man and laid out the alarming facts. The President almost iift-
mediately made his decision; alone and on his own responsi
bility, he directed MacArthur to send in American ground
troops from Japan and do everything he could to check the
North Korean aggression. One U. S. regiment was to be sent
at once from Japan, and a few hours later Truman gave the
decision to dispatch 2 divisions. The war was on.

The odds that MacArthur now faced brought to his mind
the somewhat similarly discouraging conditions he had been
forced to meet in the Philippines in early December 1941.
Once again, he would simply do the best he could with what
little he had. When the orders came on June 27 to contribute
sea and air support, he hurried to Korea a G.H.Q. Advanced
Command Group under Major General John H. Church. It was
vigilant and active well before the arrival of the orders of
June 30 to throw in ground forces, and it was of immeasurable
value in securing information, in picking a vital spot for the
first American troops and in expediting delivery of key sup
plies.

It is an ancient maxim of war never to feed in troops piece
meal. Nine times out of ten it is fatal, but MacArthur, proba
bly because he had no alternative, immediately took that
chance. He ordered Major General William F. Dean, of the
24th Division, to fly in a small fighting group, named Task
Force Smith for its commander, Lt. Colonel Charles B. Smith,
of the sist Infantry. It would be difficult to conceive of a
smaller outfit being dispatched alone into actual fighting
against heavy enemy attacks: two companies of infantry, a bat
tery of io5-mm. howitzers, two 4.2-inch mortar platoons, a

453

platoon of 75-mm. recoilles rifles and six s^G-inch rocket-
launcher teams.

On July 4, 1950, this little group of fighting men established
contact with the enemy near Osan, 25 miles below Seoul, and
the following day it received the full impact of a Communist
division, supported by Russian Tg4 tanks. For seven bloody
hours these Americans stood against this frontal attack, while
enemy units enveloped their flanks. They held out until they
were forced to blow up their heavy weapons and fight their
way on foot to the south.

The rest of the U. S. gist Regiment with the 34th Infantry
was rushed by boat across the Tsushima Strait to the port of
Pusan and then raced north by rail and unloaded almost on
the fighting lines. The Americans were now directly across the
main rail and road system that led from the capital south to
the key defense communication center of Taejon. The double-
tracked rail lines then cut 65 miles southeast to Taegu, and
then on straight south to the port of Pusan.

For 15 days the two American regiments, with the addition
of the igth Infantry of the 24th Division, fought with wild
courage to hold the rail and road lines to Taejon. Colonel
Bob Martin of the 34th Regiment sacrificed his life in the
early fighting when he calmly fired the last round of his ba
zooka at a Red tank less than 15 yards away. A few days later
Major General Dean, personally leading a forlorn attempt
to check a Communist charge, simply disappeared in the wild
melee accompanying the withdrawal. "Trade space for time"
was the order; gain at all costs the precious time to land two
more of the U. S. divisions remaining in Japan — time to bring
in heavy weapons and tanks and supplies.

In broad terms South Korea is a rough, mountainous pen
insula with three main corridors running north and south be
low the 38th parallel. Close to the east and west shorelines are
both highways and railroads, with a third irregular passageway
going down in the center between the two flanking routes. With
the American troops now arriving in force and placed in bat
tle positions, Mac Arthur's first military objective was to fight a
series of delaying actions that would check the Red drives
down the great corridors of approach. The main enemy drive
454

MANCHURIA

The key battle lines of the Korean war.

was now from the northwest, and MacArthur planned to stop
it along the Naktong river, which curves eastward for 40 miles
above the key center of Taegu. The Naktong then turns to
the south to empty into the Straits of Tsushima.

If MacArthur with his Americans and South Koreans could
hold this rectangle at the extreme southeast corner of the Re
public, it would furnish a beachhead 90 miles long and 60
miles wide. This Pusan defense pocket was bound on the east
and south by the sea, and on the west and north by the broad
and shallow Naktong river. At the bottom of the defensive per
imeter was the modern port of Pusan, and to the east lay the
port of Pohang. The heaviest enemy pressure, it should be re
peated, was from the victorious Red army driving down from
Taejon on the northwest to the west bank of the Naktong.

From the moment that orders arrived to throw in his ground
troops, MacArthur assumed unofficial direction of both the
South Koreans and the American troops. On July 7 the U. N.
Security Council agreed on a unified command in Korea, with
the United States to choose the commander and act as the
U. N. agent. The following day President Truman appointed
General MacArthur as Commander-in-Chief. This was almost
six months after the General had turned 70".

Since the Republic of Korea was not a member of the
United Nations, President Rhee issued on July 19 his own for
mal approval of the U. N. and Truman decision regarding
MacArthur's position as Commander-in-Chief.

From the moment of his appointment — or rather as soon as
the initial drive of the Red Koreans had been checked — Mac-
Arthur's mind was absorbed with the possibility of a great
by-pass that would not only relieve the battered and hard-
pressed South Korean and American troops but possibly trap
and destroy most of the North Korean Army that had driven
far to the south. He was now certain that the U. S. 24th and
25th Infantry Divisions, and the brilliant ist Marine Brigade
and the ist Cavalry Division — which would soon disembark at
the east coast port of Pohang — along with the remnants of the
eight Republic of Korea divisions, could hold on to the great
Pusan beachhead, while he engineered some spectacular envel
opment from the north, far north of the fighting.
456

Shortly the buddy system was introduced into the American
units whereby each American company integrated 100 South
Koreans into its structure. Many of the Koreans were green,
young recruits but they were brave and willing, and they
blended into the American outfits in a way that increased the
American unit's efficiency and power by a full third. The 7th
Infantry Division, kept back in Japan for some such great
stroke as MacArthur was brewing, took into its organization
8,000 South Korean recruits, bringing its depleted strength
well above the tables for war.

The most obvious spot on either coast for a great surprise
amphibious landing was at the Yellow Sea port of Inchon, 30
miles to the west of the capital city of Seoul. It offered the pos
sibility of cutting squarely across the enemy's main supply lines
leading to the south, thus isolating almost his entire army. It
was an ideal point but it had two serious drawbacks which
would make a successful landing operation all but impossible:
its 2 g-foot tides and the difficult approaches to its shorelines.

But the more MacArthur studied the maps and the infor
mation regarding the Inchon harbor and the off-shore island of
Wolmi with its two-mile-long causeway leading to the main
land, the more the project fascinated him. His planning staff
back in G.H.Q. in Tokyo, however, thought that the chances
of failure were too great for it to be seriously considered.

The very fact that his own officers as well as the Joint Chiefs
of Staff in Washington doubted its feasibility made him certain
that the North Koreans likewise would never suspect that a
vast amphibious landing would ever be attempted at Inchon.
He ordered his planners to use the greatest secrecy in laying
out the operation.

On July 20 he issued his first formal estimate of the Korean
situation. American troops had been fighting 15 days when the
statement was released:

With the deployment in Korea of major elements of the Eighth
Army now accomplished, the first phase of the campaign has
ended and with it the chance for victory by the North Korean
forces. The enemy's plan and great opportunity depended upon
the speed with which he could overrun South Korea, once he
had breached the Han River line and with overwhelming num-

457

bers and superior weapons temporarily shattered South Korean
resistance. This chance he has now lost through the extraordinary
speed with which the Eighth Army has been deployed from Japan
to stem his rush. When he crashed the Han line the way seemed
entirely open and victory was within his grasp. The desperate
decision to throw in piecemeal American elements as they arrived
by every available means of transport from Japan was the only
hope to save the situation. The skill and valor thereafter dis
played in successive holding actions by the ground forces in ac
cordance with this concept, brilliantly supported in complete
coordination by air and naval elements, forced the enemy into
continued deployments, costly frontal attacks and confused logis
tics which so slowed his advance and blunted his drive that we
have bought the precious time necessary to build a secure
base. . . .

. . . Our hold upon the southern part of Korea represents a
secure base. Our casualties despite overwhelming odds have been
relatively light. Our strength will continually increase while that
of the enemy will relatively decrease. His supply line is insecure.
He has had his great chance but failed to exploit it. We are now
in Korea in force, and with God's help we are there to stay until
the constitutional authority of the Republic is fully restored.

One week later after a thorough reconnaissance of the front
MacArthur returned to Tokyo. The sound of battle was still
ringing in his ears when he started on the i,5oo-mile flight to
Formosa to see first-hand the Nationalist China forces there
and to talk with Chiang Kai-shek. It was some consolation for
him to know that President Truman had done an almost com
plete turn-about from his statement in Chicago, January 3,
1950, formally washing Formosa off the slate. The President
then declared that the United States would furnish no more
military aid to Chiang Kai-shek. Yet on June 27 when he had
ordered MacArthur to give sea and air aid to the hard-put
South Koreans, Truman announced that the United States
would protect Formosa from invasion.

At the same time, however, the President denied Chiang
Kai-shek the right to assume operations against the Communist
458

Chinese mainland. Thus the very same U. S. Seventh Fleet
blocked the sea-roads both to and from Formosa.

This meant that the Communist China leaders need have
little worry about a possible Nationalist landing on the main
land opposite Formosa, and that they could move Red troops
northward to the Manchurian country above the Yalu river
with perfect safety. It gave their Korean war plans a tremen
dous impetus, because Red China could now enter the Korean
war at any time she chose without fear of being attacked on
her flank and rear by the Nationalist troops on Formosa. What
seemed to the muddled public to be a far-sighted move by the
President to save Chiang Kai-shek from invasion was actually
nullifying all use for the present of the large Nationalist Army
on Formosa as a fighting force against Red China. In one signifi
cant gesture it banged the door shut in Chiang's face, and it
opened the door into Korea for the Chinese Communists.
Possibly as many as a million Red Chinese could now be re
leased from the mainland opposite Formosa and made available
for future assignment in Manchuria.

Less than a week after the North Koreans had crossed the
g8th parallel the Nationalist Chinese ambassador in Washing
ton offered the State Department an advance force of 33,000
troops that could be embarked for Korea within five days after
the offer was accepted. The suggestion was politely refused.
To some it seemed that the negative decision by the State De
partment was definitely abetted by the dual facts that Britain
had long recognized the Red China government, and that the
Indian ambassador at Peiping was on intimate terms with the
Communist regime.

MacArthur spent the day and a half of his Formosa visit in
specting the Nationalist troops and equipment and in friendly
private talks with Chiang Kai-shek and his wife. Immediately
upon his return to Tokyo he issued a carefully worded state
ment that avoided any possible criticism of the administration
in Washington:

My visit to Formosa has been primarily for the purpose of
making a short reconnaissance of the potential of its defense
against possible attack. The policy has been enunciated that this

459

island, including the Pescadores, is not under present circum
stances subject to military invasion. It is my responsibility and
firm purpose to enforce this decision.

My conferences here on all levels have been most cordial and
responsive in every respect. Among the problems which were
discussed was the prompt and generous offer of the Chinese
Government to send troops to join the United Nations forces in
Korea. The belief of all concerned however was that such action
at this time might so seriously jeopardize the defense of Formosa
that it would be inadvisable.

Arrangements have been completed for effective coordination
between the American forces under my command and those of
the Chinese Government, the better to meet any attack which a
hostile force might be foolish enough to attempt. Such an attack
would, in my opinion, stand little chance of success.

It has been a great pleasure for me to meet my old comrade-
in-arms of the last war, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. His in
domitable determination to resist Communist domination arouses
my sincere admiration. His determination parallels the common
interest and purpose of Americans, that all peoples in the Pacific
area shall be free — not slave.

Nothing MacArthur could have done would have precipi
tated a greater storm of angry criticism among his old detrac
tors in the State Department than his visit to Formosa and his
subsequent report. Not only was he violently attacked by criti
cal foreign groups within the United Nations, but he was as
sailed by certain of his own countrymen who were still fol
lowing Britain and India in the appeasement of the Soviet
Union and Red China.

Within ten days after his first statement regarding Formosa,
the General felt the need for a fuller report. Busy as he was
with the desperate Korean war, he took the time to release the
following on August 10:

There have been so many misstatements made with reference to
my recent trip to Formosa that in the public interest at this
critical moment I feel constrained to correct them.

1. This trip was formally arranged and coordinated before
hand with all branches of the American and Chinese Govern
ments.

2. It was limited entirely to military matters, as I stated in

my public release after the visit, and dealt solely with the prob
lem of preventing military violence to Formosa as directed by
the President — the implementation of which directive is my re
sponsibility. It had no connection with political affairs, and,
therefore, no suggestion or thought was ever made from any
source whatsoever that a political representative accompany me.

3. The subject of the future of the Chinese Government, of
developments on the Chinese Mainland, or anything else outside
the scope of my own military responsibility, was not discussed
or even mentioned.

4. Full reports on the results of the visit were promptly made
to Washington.

Fully aware of the dangers he faced in sneak attacks against
him, MacArthur went far out of his way to be conciliatory to
the men in Washington who held the whip hand. There was
nothing else for him to do at this stage. His statement contin
ued:

This visit has been maliciously misrepresented to the public
by those who invariably in the past have propagandized a policy
of defeatism and appeasement in the Pacific. I hope the American
people will not be misled by sly insinuations, brash speculations
and bold misstatements invariably attributed to anonymous
sources, so insidiously fed them both nationally and interna
tionally by persons ten thousand miles away from the actual
events, which tend, if they are not indeed designed, to promote
disunity and destroy faith and confidence in American purposes
and institutions and American representatives, at this time of
great world peril.

Contrary to these propaganda efforts calculated to create the
impression of friction and disunity between this Headquarters
and various executive agencies in Washington, there could be
no greater unity of purpose and complete coordination and co
operation than now exist. I have never known so high a degree
of mutual support, without the slightest friction or misunder
standing.

But this last obviously was for public consumption. He knew
he was once again fighting a two-front war. During most of the
early days of the Japanese struggle his Southwest Pacific thea
tre had been throttled down and handicapped by Roosevelt
and the Joint Chiefs of Staff working closely with Prime Min-

461

ster Churchill in their strategy of "Hitler First." Throughout
Imost five years of occupation duties in Japan he had faced the
teady and relentless pressure of the Russian Soviet, aided by
killful propaganda and the secret conniving of strong anti-
slationalist China groups within the U. S. State Department,
'vfow, for a second time, he had a difficult foreign war on his
lands, while bitter opposition was mounting against him be-
lind his back in Washington. Always he was menaced by the
lefmite but unpredictable possibility of a sudden intervention
.nto the Korean war by Communist Chinese armies, backed
md equipped by Communist Russia. And he could not be too
>ure of the reaction of certain powerful and allegedly friendly
ciations in the Security Council of the U. N. should Red China
actively interfere.

The half-million Chinese Nationalist troops in Formosa
must have been a matter of extreme military importance in
tads eyes. Yet already he found that Britain's Socialist Prime
Minister Attlee and India's left-wing Socialist Nehru carried
Ear more weight in many official American quarters than he,
himself, the Commander-in-Chief on the actual front.

In middle August, while he was actively engaged in the
prospect of the great Inchon landing, a request came from
Clyde A. Lewis, Commander-in-Chief of the Veterans of For
eign Wars, asking MacArthur to send a message to the 5ist An
nual National Convention in Chicago on August 27. MacAr
thur agreed to prepare a speech to be read there.

A week before the convention opened he sent his long mes
sage to Commander Lewis and turned over copies to the news
agencies and one or two news magazines with a release date to
correspond to the reading of the paper on the floor of the Con
tention. A copy was sent through ordinary channels to the Pen
tagon. Late on the night of August 25, two days before the
zormal release, a Washington reporter called the attention of
Averell Harriman to the MacArthur statement, which he had
>een in his office. A copy was hurried to the President. At 9 the
following morning the angry Truman called in his chief military
md civilian advisors.

When the President found that the speech had not been
cleared at the Pentagon, but that the release had been merely
162

sent in from Tokyo at the same time a copy had been sent to the
V.F.W. convention in Washington, he was incensed. The Presi
dent's snap judgment was to fire MacArthur at once. Secretary
of Defense Louis Johnson was able, however, to dissuade Tru
man from relieving MacArthur, especially in view of the critical
situation in Korea. The President ordered Johnson to cable
MacArthur immediately to withdraw the speech. The General
promptly stopped its delivery on the convention floor, but it was
too late to check its general circulation, since a news weekly
actually had gone to press with the full text.

The reaction from London, Delhi, Lake Success and Wash
ington was immediate and angry. It was apparent that from
now on MacArthur would be held in open suspicion and dis
trust by the Red appeasers who were becoming fearful that
MacArthur might actually be winning the war. His statement,
intended for the V.F.W., though officially cancelled, was given
world-wide circulation. It read in part:

In view of misconceptions currently being voiced concerning
the relationship of Formosa to our strategic potential in the
Pacific, I believe it in the public interest to avail myself of this
opportunity to state my views thereon to you, all of whom having
fought overseas understand broad strategic concepts. To begin
with, any appraisal of that strategic potential requires an ap
preciation of the changes wrought in the course of the past war.
Prior thereto the Western strategic frontier of the United States
lay on the littoral line of the Americas, with an exposed island
salient extending out through Hawaii, Midway and Guam to
the Philippines. That salient was not an outpost of strength but
an avenue of weakness, along which the enemy could and did
attack us. The Pacific was a potential area of advance for any
predatory force intent upon striking at the bordering land areas.

All of this was changed by our Pacific victory. Our strategic
frontier then shifted to embrace the entire Pacific Ocean, which
had become a vast moat to protect us as long as we hold it. In
deed, it acts as a protective shield for all of the Americas and
all free lands of the Pacific Ocean area. We control it to the shores
of Asia by a chain of islands extending in an arc from the Aleu
tians to the Marianas, held by us and our free allies. From this
island chain we can dominate with air power every Asiatic port
from Vladivostok to Singapore, and prevent any hostile move-

46$

ment into the Pacific. Any predatory attack from Asia must be
an amphibious effort. No amphibious force can be successful
without control of the sea lanes and the air over these lanes in
its avenue of advance.

So important in MacArthur's eyes was the purely strategic
:onception of Formosa's position that he now reiterated his
military threats:

With naval and air supremacy and modest ground elements to
defend bases, any major attack from continental Asia toward us
or our friends of the Pacific would be doomed to failure. Under
such conditions the Pacific no longer represents menacing ave
nues of approach for a prospective invader — it assumes instead
the friendly aspect of a peaceful lake. Our line of defense is a
natural one and can be maintained with a minimum of military
effort and expense. It envisions no attack against anyone, nor
does it provide the bastions essential for offensive operations,
but properly maintained would be an invincible defense against
aggression. If we hold this line we may have peace — lose it and
war is inevitable. . . .

As a result of its geographic location and base potential, utili
zation of Formosa by a military power hostile to the United
States may either counterbalance or overshadow the strategic
importance of the central and southern flank of the United States
front line position. Formosa in the hands of such a hostile power
could be compared to an unsinkable aircraft carrier and sub
marine tender ideally located to accomplish offensive strategy
and at the same time checkmate defensive or counteroffensive
operations by friendly forces based on Okinawa and the Philip
pines. This unsinkable carrier-tender has the capacity to operate
from ten to twenty air groups of types ranging from jet fighters
to B-2Q type bombers, as well as to provide forward operating
facilities for short-range coastal submarines. In acquiring this
forward submarine base, the efficacy of the short-range submarine
would be so enormously increased by the additional radius of
activity as to threaten completely sea traffic from the south and
interdict all sea lanes in the Western Pacific. Submarine block
ade by the enemy, with all its destructive ramifications, would
thereby become a virtual certainty.

Should Formosa fall and bases thereafter come into the hands
of a potential enemy of the United States, the latter will have
acquired an additional "fleet" which will have been obtained

and can be maintained at an incomparably lower cost than could
its equivalent in aircraft carriers and submarine tenders. . . .

It was this evil shadow of the ever-expanding Communist
global domination by Russia that had now fallen directly across
the strategic island. MacArthur, the hater o£ war, could only
point out the real and immediate dangers of confusing appease
ment with peace. This was not the time for expediency and re
treat. He went on:

Nothing could be more fallacious than the threadbare argu
ment by those who advocate appeasement and defeatism in the
Pacific, that if we defend Formosa we alienate continental Asia.
Those who speak thus do not understand the Orient. They do
not grasp that it is in the pattern of Oriental psychology to re
spect and follow aggressive, resolute and dynamic leadership —
to quickly turn from a leadership characterized by timidity or
vacillation — and they underestimate the Oriental mentality.

Nothing in the last five years has so inspired the Far East as
the American determination to preserve the bulwarks of our
Pacific Ocean strategic position from future encroachment, for
few of its peoples fail accurately to appraise the safeguard such
determination brings to their free institutions. To pursue any
other course would be to turn over the fruits of our Pacific vic
tory to a potential enemy. It would shift any future battle area
5,000 miles eastward, to the coasts of the American continents, our
own home coasts; it would completely expose our friends in the
Philippines, our friends in Australia and New Zealand, our
friends in Indonesia, our friends in Japan and other areas, to
the lustful thrusts of those who stand for slavery as against liberty,
.for atheism as against God.

The decision of President Truman on June 27 lighted into
flame a lamp of hope throughout Asia that was burning dimly
towards extinction. It marked for the Far East the focal and
turning point in this area's struggle for freedom. It swept aside
in one great monumental stroke all of the hypocrisy and the
sophistry which has confused and deluded so many people dis
tant from the actual scene.

President Truman's personal ambassador, Averell Harriman,
was rushed by plane to Tokyo to set MacArthur straight on
some of his apparent deviations from the Washington and

465

U.N. party line. Harriman was back in Washington within
five days after he had taken off for his distant mission.

Pressure on the Pusan beachhead was at its highest when
MacArthur addressed a note to the Joint Chiefs of Staff asking
for permission to bomb the highly important North Korean city
of Racin, which lies thirty-five miles southwest of the Siberian-
Korean border. It was the key supply center for this entire
northern area, and the destruction of its transportation facili
ties by air would have been a perfectly safe and reasonable
proposition. Both Lt. General George E. Stratemeyer, com
mander of the Far East Air Force, and his bomber chief, Major
General Emmett (Rosey) O'Donnell, had vigorously appealed
to MacArthur for the right to take out this troublesome North
Korean supply center during the critical summer period before
the Inchon landing. The Red Koreans were then attacking the
Pusan defense pocket from three sides, and supplies coming
down the east coast by sea and land from Racin were of
great importance to the enemy. But MacArthur's request was
promptly turned down by Washington and the U.N.

MacArthur's mind was already turning to the complicated
problems connected with the Inchon landing. Before he issued
the final directives, he was visited by the Army Chief of Staff
J. Lawton Collins on two occasions, but Collins remained skepti
cal about its success. Only Defense Secretary Louis A. Johnson,
now to be relieved, had openly and courageously approved the
bold venture since the start.

The North Korean pressure on the Pusan beachhead had
been increasing rather than abating. MacArthur was putting
all his eggs in one basket, but he was superbly confident on
September 13 when he boarded a warship for Inchon on the
west Korean coast, so as to be on hand if some unforeseen
tragedy befell the great landing operation.

Since the beginning of the war MacArthur had been using
psychological warfare to a far greater extent than even in the
Philippines. At his first staff conference after American troops
had been committed he called for the full use of this new
dimension in war. Colonel Woodall Greene, chief of the special
branch, immediately prepared the leaflets and 10 million were
dropped behind the enemy lines within the first few days. Each
466

month tens of thousands o£ front-line broadcasts, promising
good treatment for all who surrendered, were directed toward
the Red positions. There can be no question that all this helped
materially in breaking down the morale of the enemy when the
pressure came, and some 200,000 Reds were either captured or
surrendered. MacArthur, the old master of three-dimensional
war, was now the champion of the new weapon in complete
envelopment — land, sea, air and mind.

Back across the world in Washington a matter of considera
ble importance to MacArthur and to the conduct of the war
occurred on the isth of September, 1950, when General
George C. Marshall, who had resigned as Secretary of State in
late 1948, was appointed to succeed Louis Johnson as Secre
tary of National Defense on September 17. It took a special
act of Congress to by-pass the law that made any active mili
tary officer ineligible to fill the high post.

Secretary of State Dean Acheson now had formidable allies
close at hand or within his own department: Lt. General Be
dell Smith as head of the highly important Central Intelligence
Agency: Emerson and Joseph E. Davies and other partisans in
key posts in the State Department; Marshall's own choice,
General Collins, in the Pentagon; and Marshall himself, who
had played second fiddle to Roosevelt at Yalta but first fiddle
to Truman in the tragic play that led to the loss of China.
More than once President Truman had referred to -Marshall as
"the greatest living American."

Marshall, many felt, would now have a good chance to prove
his greatness by his official contribution to the success or fail
ure of this desperate undeclared war going on in the mud and
stench and death of the river valleys and deadly hills of this
far-away and lonely land of Korea. In many ways he dominated
both American military and foreign policies.

The appointment, however, could hardly have appeared a
happy one to MacArthur, the hard-pressed commander-in-chief
of the American and South Korean forces and their sparse but
fighting allies.

467

In none of the many amphibious landings MacArthur had
made in the long march up the New Guinea coast and inter
vening islands to Leyte and Lingayen Gulf, had he faced such
a hazard as the sg-foot tides that rose and fell in Inchon har
bor in middle September. Only for a scant three-hour stretch
each twelve hours, could landing craft get close to the shores.
Split-second timing with complete coordination of all arms was
an old story to him, but never before had he faced this peculiar
problem of abnormal tides.

His plan called for the ist U. S. Marine Division to make
the initial landing. The ist Marine Brigade, which had fought
so magnificently in Korea, was pulled back to Japan, where it
was reinforced by six Marine battalions from the United States
and the Mediterranean, and by its own Marine-trained combat
air support. The 7th Infantry Division that had been kept in
Japan and built up by the induction of 8,000 South Koreans
comprised the other half of the new X Corps he now placed
under the command of Major General Edward M. Almond, who
had recently been relieved of his duties as chief of staff to
G.H.Q. in Tokyo.

Two days before the landings two American and two British
cruisers entered the harbor, and four American destroyers fear
lessly pointed close in, inviting fire from hidden enemy shore
batteries. Although without an air force, the North Koreans
rose to the bait, and at once the warships opened up on the ex
posed batteries. Four great aircraft carriers standing over the
horizon furnished air power, and every spot that looked like an
enemy position was heavily blasted. The strategic surprise was
so complete that the enemy was in no position to oppose the
landings.

At 6:30 in the morning of September 15, and one hour be
fore high tide, a battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment was
put ashore on the key island of Wolmi. Men and guns poured
onto the restricted beaches, and the two-mile stone causeway
to Inchon was secured. Twelve hours after the first landing the
29-foot tide rose again, and this time the Marine assault lines
pushed directly ashore and over the city's g-foot sea wall. When
468

the tide receded the long, gangling LSTs squatted helplessly in
the mud far back from the high points of the beaches, while
tanks and vehicles still waddled ashore.

The Marine columns with their tanks in the lead fanned out
toward the city of Seoul, 30 miles inland, and toward the
Kimpo airfield and the great supply arteries running north
and south. On the i8th the 7th Division came ashore and
moved swiftly toward the outskirts of the capital and the vital
communication avenues below it. Eleven days after the initial
landings, Seoul fell, after heavy fighting by men of the two
U. S. divisions aided by four sturdy battalions of South Korean
marines.

[Throughout the entire Korean war the U.S. Navy, with
limited Allied naval assistance, played a highly important and
brave part in the long and involved struggle. No mission was
too hazardous for these tireless sailors — and their air arm — to
undertake. Eventually the navy men on the spot boasted that
MacArthur had been a superb General of ground and air forces
before this particular war, but that now he was a first-rate
Admiral.]

On the day Seoul was freed a free-wheeling battalion of the
7th Cavalry broke out of the Pusan beachhead, far to the
south, and in a single wild night raced on rubber and steel
tracks 100 miles northwest to a junction with the outposts of
the 7th Division standing across the principal north-south
highway below Seoul. Since the initial landing at Pusan there
had been much desperate fighting far below by the United
Nations troops within the bridgehead, attempting to break
through the steel wall that the enemy had built around the
embattled U. N. defenders. Here, more than 100 miles to the
south of the 38th parallel, the North Korean attacking force
now suddenly found the tables reversed. The 13 infantry divi
sions and the single tank division the Red Koreans had sent
into the fighting were no longer the trappers but the trapped.
With the main northern supply and escape lines cut below
Seoul, a full two-thirds of the total enemy troops were imme-

469

diately thrown on the defensive on the west side of the Pusan
beachhead. The sharp loo-mile thrust of the mechanized 7th
Cavalry Regiment up the northwestern road, linking U. N.
communications with the troops from the Inchon landings, had
sprung the upper jaws of the pincer that now closed down
on the North Koreans. Thousands of Reds were killed and
wounded in their desperate attempt to escape the trap, while
other thousands threw away their weapons and disguised in
peasant garb tried to make their way northward through the
central mountain passes toward the g8th parallel. In the two
weeks between September 15 and 30 the United Nations forces
took 23,600 prisoners. Main roads and rail escape lines to the
north of the old Pusan beachhead were quickly blocked in the
center and along the eastern shorelines.

The dual movement of the great Inchon by-pass and the sub
sequent breakout from the Pusan beachhead had been per
fectly executed. MacArthur and his forces were showered with
congratulatory messages from President Truman, Secretary of
Army Pace, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a personal message
from George Marshall, now Secretary of National Defense.
MacArthur's reply to Marshall's cable could be branded as a
classic example of overstatement. After all the neglect he had
suffered at the hands of Marshall it seems logical to suppose
that MacArthur's eyes were sparkling With the irony of the sit
uation as he wrote out the words:

Thanks, George, for your fine message. It brings back vividly
the memories of past wars and the complete coordination and
perfect unity of cooperation which has always existed in our
mutual relationships and martial endeavors. Again my deepest
appreciation for your message and for yout unfailing support.

There is, however, no reason to doubt the complete sincer
ity of the message received from the British Chiefs of Staff or
of MacArthur's answering note. The British professional sol
diers, regardless of their meddling politicians, were unsparing
in their praise of the great deeds of their comrade-in-arms:

We send you our warmest congratulations on your brilliant
victory. We have admired not only the skill with which you
have conducted an extremely difficult rear guard action against
470

great odds over many anxious weeks, but equally the bravery
and tenacity with which the forces under your command have
responded to your inspiring and indefatigable leadership. We
believe that the brilliant conception and masterly execution of
the "Inchon" counter stroke, which you planned and launched
whilst holding the enemy at bay in the south, will rank amongst
the finest strategic achievements in military history.

British Chiefs of Staff

MacArthur's perfect touch was shown in the few words of his
reply:

My thanks and deepest appreciation for your inspiring mes
sage. British Forces played a large part in the victory.

Within two weeks after the opening of the Inchon by-pass,
the South Korean troops rapidly pushed up the east coast rail
road and highway, and on October i reached the disputed 38th
parallel. For days the U. N. halls at Lake Success crackled with
bitter debate over the right of MacArthur to enter the Red
areas of North Korea. Even before his capital had been re
stored to him, President Rhee had announced on September
19 that his South Koreans would continue their attacks, with
or without U. N. assistance. Finally on October i MacArthur
with the full approval of Washington called upon the enemy to
surrender in the following proclamation:

To: The Commander-in-Chief
North Korean Forces

The early and total defeat and complete destruction of your
armed forces and war-making potential is now inevitable. In
order that the decisions of the United Nations may be carried
out with a minimum of further loss of life and destruction of
property, I, as the United Nations Commander-in-Chief, call
upon you and the forces under your command, in whatever part
of Korea situated, forthwith to lay down your arms and cease
hostilities under such military supervision as I may direct — and
I call upon you at once to liberate all United Nations prisoners
of war and civilian internees under your control and to make
adequate provision for their protection, care, maintenance, and
immediate transportation to such places as I indicate.

North Korean Forces, including prisoners of war in the hands
of the United Nations Command, will continue to be given the

471

care dictated by civilized custom and practice and permitted to
return to their homes as soon as practicable.

I shall anticipate your early decision upon this opportunity
to avoid the further useless shedding o£ blood and destruction
of property.

That same day he ordered the ROK troops on the east coast
to cross the border line and head north. He had ample justifi
cation, he was certain, in the original Security Council resolu
tion of June 27, "to repel the armed attack and to restore in
ternational peace and security in the area." Only by crushing
the North Koreans in their own territory could this peace and
security be gained. The Security Council's resolution of July 7
gave further authority in its repetition of the declaration of
June 27.

But for a period of nine days the United Nations forces,
which at the moment included the five U. S. divisions and the
British Commonwealth, Canadian and Turkish brigades and
token units of several other countries, were held back of the
line. The South Korean Republic was not a member of the
U. N., although its troops were under MacArthur 's orders.

On October 3 at Lake Success and while a Korean debate
was under way, the Indian delegate, Sir Benegal Rau, trans
mitted a message sent to him by Prime Minister Nehru, which
in turn had come to the Indian Premier from his ambassador
in Peiping. The warning that had been given the Indian am
bassador by the Communist China Foreign Minister, Chou En-
lai, was that the Chinese Communists would send troops to the
Korean frontier if U. N. or U. S. troops entered North Korea.
This would not happen, the threat continued, if South Korean
troops alone invaded the territory north of the 38th parallel.
The warning was considerably watered down by the Indian
diplomat, who explained to the Political Committee of the
General Assembly that "our fears may turn out to be wrong,
but each government has to judge the situation upon its best
information and act accordingly/* The particularly dire sug
gestion of intervention was ignored, and on October 7 a new
resolution passed the Assembly that indicated but did not for
mally give full authority to MacArthur to order U. N. troops
forward. Again MacArthur was forced to accept the responsi-
472

bility without a definite and written directive. This was to be
come the pattern of most of his dealings with the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and with the U. N.

The following day MacArthur addressed a formal note to
the Premier of the government of North Korea. His first call
for surrender had been sent to the Commander-in-Chief of the
North Korean Forces. This second attempt at peace went to
the head of state, but, as in the first effort, the result was nil.

There was nothing to do but continue the fighting.

With Seoul captured and the great Kimpo airdrome in U. N.
hands, MacArthur on October 7 sent by sea to the east coast the
ist Marine and ^th Infantry divisions of Almond's X Corps
that had completed the great Inchon by-pass. Two days later
the ist Cavalry Division and I Corps, with other U. N. units
operating on the west coast under the Eighth Army com
mander, drove across the 3 8th parallel and advanced toward
the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. On the other side of
the peninsula, and along the Sea of Japan, the ROK (Repub
lic of Korea) I Corps secured the important port of Wonsan,
and other ROK units won the central town of Inchon. All the
fighting, save the tough job of mopping up the North Koreans
who had adopted the guise of peasant guerillas, was now tak
ing place north of the 3 8th parallel.

MacArthur's tactics of striking on both coast lines and up
through the center of the rough, mountainous country had
giveia the enemy no moment to reorganize his shattered divi
sions and dig in for strong defense. Toward the end of Sep
tember the U. S. i87th Airborne Regimental Combat Team was
flown to Kimpo airdrome, and 2,800 paratroopers of the same
outfit on October 20, with 300 tons of combat equipment, were
dropped behind the enemy lines at Sunchon, and on the air
strips in the west coast port of Sukchon, well above the 38th
parallel. MacArthur accompanied this fleet of air transports in
his sturdy old Bataan.

Two days after this initial drop here in North Korea, an
additional 1,200 troops parachuted down. There was no lull

473

in the varied attacks and envelopments. By the end of October
a total of 135,000 enemy troops had been captured and were
in POW pens.

The war had every appearance of going along extremely
well, but the pressure on the President to stand for no dictato
rial attitudes from MacArthur, and the demand that the Presi
dent make it perfectly clear to the soldier just who was boss
was too strong for Truman to resist. A meeting of the two had
been suggested but instead of bluntly ordering MacArthur to
report to him, Truman courteously offered to meet him half
way and let the General choose Wake Island rather than Ha
waii. On October 15 the cable arrived for MacArthur to meet
the President at Wake Island. The mid-term elections of 1950
would be held in less than 3 weeks, but the General unquestion
ably sensed a political implication in the meeting.

American morning papers on October 1 1 gave the President's
announcement of the coming meeting. The General took with
him only Major General Courtney Whitney and his aide, Colo
nel Larry Bunker. He was not at all certain what might de
velop, for reports had reached him of the violent criticism lev
elled at him for his action in sending U. N. troops north of the
38th parallel without specific orders.

MacArthur, arriving first, met the plane bearing the Presi
dent and his formidable group of advisors, which included
Averell Harriman, Special Assistant to the President; Secretary
of the Army Frank Pace; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Omar Bradley; Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet Ad
miral Radford; Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk; and
Ambassador at Large Philip C. Jessup.

For an hour the President and General MacArthur talked
privately, and then they were joined by the impressive entou
rage for a general discussion. MacArthur had no way of know
ing that a female stenographer brought from Jessup's office in
Washington had been secretly placed behind a door conven
iently left ajar so that she might hear and transcribe every word
of the meeting. [The facts regarding this unusual procedure,
along with the transcript of the conversation and additional
notes, were secretly turned over to a friendly newspaper man
in Washington some six months later, but probably MacArthur
474

would not have made any changes in his frank contributions to
the give-and-take exchange had he known of the presence of
the surreptitious stenographer.]

A copy of the document was sent to MacArthur's headquar
ters within a few days of the meeting, but there is a possibility
that press of war matters left him no time to go over it carefully.

At the moment of the conference it seemed that the total
destruction of the North Korean forces and the overrunning of
all the Korean territory north of the 38th parallel would neces
sitate only a few weeks more fighting. The fresh U. S. 2nd and
grd Infantry divisions had arrived or would shortly arrive in
Korea, and it was apparent that nothing but full-scale action
by the Chinese Communists could check the rapid and com
plete liquidation of the North Korean Forces. To all intent
and purpose the war was almost over.

Toward the end of the extremely top secret session on
Wake Island the President turned to the General and put the
blunt and straightforward question: "What are the chances of
Chinese or Soviet interference?" MacArthur answered:

Very little. Had they interfered in the first or second month
it would have been decisive. We are no longer fearful of their
intervention. We no longer stand hat in hand. The Chinese have
300,000 men in Manchuria. Of these probably not more than
100,000 to 125,000 are distributed along the Yalu River. Only
50,000 to 60,000 can be gotten across the Yalu River. They have
no air force. Now that we have bases for our Air Force in Korea,
if the Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang there would be
the greatest slaughter.

With the Russians it is a little different. They have an air
force in Siberia and a fairly good one, with excellent pilots
equipped with some jets and B-25 and B-sg planes. They can
put 1,000 planes in the air with some 2,000 more from the 5th
and yth Soviet fleets. They are probably no match for our Air
Force. The Russians have no ground troops available for North
Korea. They would have difficulty putting troops into the field.
It would take six weeks to get a division across, and six weeks
brings the winter. The only other combination would be Rus
sian air support of Chinese ground troops.

Russian air is deployed in a semicircle through Mukden and
Harbin, but the coordination between the Russian air and the

475

Chinese ground would be so flimsy that I believe Russian air
would bomb the Chinese as often as they would bomb us. Ground
support is a very difficult thing to do. Our Marines do it per
fectly. They have been trained for it. Our own air and ground
forces (coordination) are not (as good) as the Marines, but they
are effective. Between untrained air and ground forces an air
umbrella is impossible without a lot of joint training. I believe
it just wouldn't work with Chinese Communist ground and
Russian air. We are the best.

Averell Harriman broke in at this point with a question re
garding war criminals, and there was no further reference to
the chances of Communist China or Russian intervention. Mac-
Arthur had given his frank opinion regarding the complex and
unfathomable situation as it stood on October 15, 1950. He had
stated that there were 300,000 Chinese Communist troops in
Manchuria and from 100,000 to 125,000 directly along the Yalu.
It was his impression that not more than from 50,000 to 60,000
could be gotten across the broad river at present, and that it
would not be frozen over for some weeks. No Russian jet fighters
had been seen in Korean territory, but there were plenty of
Russian planes in both Siberian and Manchurian fields that
could be utilized.

It seems logical that MacArthur's negative answer to the
President's direct question regarding the possibility of Red
Chinese intervention was based on the assumption that the Red
leaders would reason this way: if a large invasion force struck
the U.N. armies, MacArthur would then be permitted to use
his air arm, with its deadly potential of atomic bombs. Within
a matter of hours this unwrapping of his air would mean the
destruction of the bridges over the Yalu, of enemy airfields,
troop concentrations, supply lines and every important base and
target in Manchuria. The invading Red army, regardless of its
size, would be cut off from its supplies and soon defeated. It was
incredible to MacArthur that the shrewd Chinese leaders would
dare risk an all-out attack with such air odds against them.
MacArthur could not conceive the possibility that the Com
munists might already be tipped off that, regardless of what
happened to U.N. forces, certain Allied powers were influential
enough to keep America from giving him the full use of his
476

air arm, even to save his own armies. He simply could not be
lieve such craven perfidity possible. And here lay the key to his
answer that there was "very little chance of Chinese interven
tion."

When the conferences ended, the President and the Gen
eral rode alone together over the coral roads of the Island in
a battered old American car. The conversation was free and
easy and friendly.

Here in the warm and colorful atmosphere of Wake Island
MacArthur encouraged Truman to speak his mind on matters
that touched Truman's own political future. The General sug
gested that the President might have to run again to see that
his own policies were carried out.

The President's answer was a trifle vague: "I want only
three words as my epitaph — 'He Brought Peace.' "

MacArthur again referrred to the election that was still al
most two years away.

"I can assure you of one thing, Mr. President/' the General
went on. "If you ever have to run against a military man, his
name won't be MacArthur."

Truman jumped at the bait and launched into a tirade
against General Eisenhower, whose name was being frequently
mentioned as a candidate, and who was shortly to be sent to
Europe as supreme commander of the recently organized and
highly touted NATO forces. Truman's description of the
younger 5-star general was proof that he had once driven mules
in Missouri.

Despite the outwardly friendly nature of the visit there seem
to have been very few, if any, tangible results. Two men who
were most directly concerned with the desperate and changing
Far Eastern situation, and with the rise or fall of General Mac-
Arthur — Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Secretary of De
fense George Marshall — had remained behind in Washington.
The whole affair had been most perfunctory.

477

23
rTHE CRIME OF THE CENTURY11

On October 15, 1950, the day that MacArthur boarded the
Bataan at Wake Island to fly back to Tokyo, Russian-made
anti-aircraft batteries, planted on the Manchurian side of the
Yalu and manned by Red Chinese, shot down their first Amer
ican plane patrolling below the south bank of the river. The
following day it was discovered that elements of the go7th
Regiment of the 124th Division of the Chinese Communist
24th Army had crossed the Yalu and were proceeding toward
the Choshin and Fusan dams in the northcentral area. Even
tually they came in contact with U. N. forces some 60 miles
north of Hamhung on the east coast.

On the 20th of October the Chinese Communist 5 6th
Task Force, consisting of approximately 5,000 troops, crossed
the Yalu at Antung, near the mouth of the river. MacArthur,
in a special report to the U. N. Security Council, gave addi
tional information regarding the sudden turn of events: "A
captured Communist soldier of this Task Force states that
his group was organized out of the regular Chinese Communist
4Oth Army, stationed across the river in Manchurian Antung."

On October 30 there was an interrogation of 19 Chinese
Communist prisoners belonging to the two regiments now
north of the western port of Chongjin, and by November 4 a
total of 35 Communist Chinese prisoners of war had been
examined. Some wore North Korean uniforms.

There no longer remained the slightest doubt that regular
Chinese Communist units had now crossed the Yalu in force
and had met U. N. troops. There was still a possibility, how
ever, that they were at least partially volunteers. MacArthur,
with the approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and with a
scant month left before deadly winter closed in, pushed his
advances northward toward the Yalu as rapidly as possible.
478

He might still destroy the remaining North Korean forces be
fore they were too heavily reinforced by Red China and before
winter came.

On October 26 the yth Regiment of the ROK 6th Division
reached the international border town of Chosan on the Yalu
river, but soon was forced to retire. By early November the
U. S. 24th Division advanced up the West Coast toward the
temporary North Korean capital of Sinuiju at the mouth of
the Yalu. It encountered strong resistance and pulled back.

Here on the western side of the peninsula Lt. General
Walton Walker, the 8th Army commander, had three corps
comprising four American divisions, four ROK divisions and
the British Commonwealth and Turkish brigades, as well as
small units from five other United Nations countries that had
sent token fighting forces. On to the east a long arm of North
Korean country stretched straight on up the Sea of Japan
and came to an end some 70 miles below the Russian port of
Vladivostok. Here on the Sea of Japan sector the X Corps,
stilt under independent command of Major General Almond,
mustered the U. S. ist Marines, the 7th Infantry Division and
two ROK divisions, with the fresh U. S. grd Division about to
disembark at Wonsan, some 50 miles below the port of Hung-
nam. In the rugged central mountains, northwest of this coastal
city of Hungnam, was the highly important Choshin reservoir,
which was hooked into the vast Japanese-built electric power
system that gave North Korea its industrial importance. Its
power lines reached to the small-arms factories of the Chinese
Communists at Mukden and to the mines and industrial
plants of eastern Manchuria.

MacArthur's two field commanders, Walker and Almond,
drove cautiously northward up both coasts despite the double
threat of the Chinese Communists and the approaching winter.
Victory was in sight — if their luck held out.

But always MacArthur had to depend largely on his own
enthusiasm and demand for victory and his own will to win,
with little real help from Washington. From the moment of
the great success of the Inchon landing on, he had the whip
hand and would have remained complete master of the battle
field if Washington had supported him with honest vigor. But

479

this was not the case. General Collins had initially opposed
him in the Inchon venture and only the backing o£ Louis A.
Johnson, the then Secretary of Defense, had given him the
chance to put it over. Johnson was now replaced by General
Marshall, although it took a special act of Congress to permit
a general on the active rolls to serve. Collins was still Army
Chief of Staff, and Bradley head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Obviously MacArthur could hope for no real enthusiasm
from the Pentagon clique.

Instead of the Washington crowd being full-heartedly be
hind a great surge for victory, the State Department seemed
to give way to hidden pressures and secret threats by the
timid or interfering members of the U. N. who, combined,
had less than 10% of the total of American troops in Korea
but demanded a major share in all decisions. How much of
this tragic failure to stand squarely behind the American com
mander and Syngman Rhee may have influenced the Red
Chinese in their decision to enter the war may never be
known, but the inertia of the U. N. and its absurd power
over the American State Department were largely responsible
for the situation that soon resulted.

MacArthur knew he was taking a long chance to push boldly
northward in the face of winter, but the enemy was groggy and
ripe for the kill. It seemed certain that there must be secret and
vicious interests working against him, but the possibility of
victory was too strong to permit him to abandon this great
chance to end the war. His worries were ceaseless and he was
almost as one acting in the dark and far from home.

Around November 6 he cabled the Joint Chiefs of Staff that
he could not be held responsible for what might happen unless
he was given permission to bomb the Yalu bridges if affairs took
a sudden turn for the worse. This was not forthcoming, but
MacArthur still could not believe that if his armies actually
faced a new war and the possibilities of destruction, he would
continue to be denied the use of any and every weapon he
possessed. Throughout the history of war this had been a recog
nized and unbroken tenet.

It was still impossible for him to understand fully the
weight of the outside power exercised by the U. N. on the
480

American State Department — and, in turn, the overwhelming
influence of the State Department on the White House and
Pentagon. Under no circumstances could he believe he would
be virtually abandoned.

Suddenly around November 10 much of the pressure against
the advancing U. N. and ROK forces seemed to slacken. On
the East the alert ROK Capital Division pushed rapidly up
the coast along the Sea of Japan to Chongjin, only 60 miles
from the Russian border. Meanwhile elements of the U. S. ist
Marine and the 7th Infantry Divisions, with the fresh grd In
fantry Division supporting them, drove toward the great
Choshin reservoir, 60 miles inland from the coast.

Cold blasts and light snowstorms began sweeping down
from the north, and a weird sort of uncertainty gripped the
front. On November i Russian-built jet Migs first appeared in
combat. Well before this time enemy anti-aircraft batteries, se
cure in their protected nests north of the Yalu, were regularly
shooting down American planes, which were scrupulously
observing their restrictions to keep south of the border. To all
this was added the definite intelligence that tens of thousands of
Chinese Communist troops were now well below the Yalu.

Into the already crazy-quilt pattern there was violently in
jected a curious event that proved how deep-rooted were the
global desires to conciliate and appease Russia, influenced in
part by the demand among certain friendly nations for trade
relations with Red China at any price. Sir Gladwyn Jebb, the
British representative in the U. N., rose in the Security Coun
cil and proposed that Peiping be invited to send envoys
to Lake Success to take part in the discussion of the Korean
situation. (Sir Gladwyn was said to have shared in working
out the details of the Yalta Agreement.)

On November 8 a formal invitation to put their case before
the United Nations was sent to the Chinese Communists in
Peiping, and their emissaries arrived in New York on Novem
ber 24. It was to be a day of double significance in the swiftly
unfolding tragedy on the Korean front.

481

Eight days before this, President Truman released a care
fully worded statement regarding a Security Council resolu
tion pledging that the Chinese frontier would be kept inviolate
and that all U. N. forces would be withdrawn when a unified,
independent and democratic government was established
throughout Korea. What he said on November 16 showed his
complete approval of the MacArthur strategy, and of the gen
eral point of view of the fighting leaders at the front:

United Nations forces are now being attacked from the safety
of a privileged sanctuary. Planes operating from bases in China
cross over into Korea to attack United Nations ground and air
forces and then flee back across the border. Chinese Communist
and North Korean Communist forces are being reinforced, sup
plied and equipped from bases behind the safety of the Sino-
Korean border.

The pretext which the Chinese Communists advance for tak
ing offensive action against United Nations forces in Korea from
behind the protection afforded by the Sino-Korean border is
their professed belief that these forces intend to carry hostilities
across the frontier into Chinese territory.

The resolutions and every other action taken by the United
Nations demonstrate beyond any doubt that no such intention
has ever been entertained. On the contrary, it has been repeatedly
stated that it is the intention of the United Nations to localize
i the conflict and to withdraw its forces from Korea as soon as
the situation permits.

Speaking for the United States Government and people, I can
give assurance that we support and are acting within the limits
of the United Nations policy in Korea, and that we have never
at any time entertained any intention to carry hostilities into
China. . . .

It was the first time that the phrase "privileged sanctuary"
had been used in a public document. It struck a bell in the
minds of the worried field commanders, 10,000 miles away,
who realized the desperate task they were undertaking but
who had supreme confidence in their troops and in Mac-
Arthur's leadership — and in the old-fashioned vigor of Ameri
can sovereignty and integrity.

Besides, these harassed soldiers were always sustained by

their belief that should the Red Chinese attack in great force,
MacArthur would not be denied the right to use his bombers
against the supply lines, bases and concentrations north of the
Yalu.

It was the crux of the momentous decision he was shortly
to take. His Intelligence, gathered from the several conven
tional agencies and the usual native spies, disclosed that an
alarming infiltration of Red troops in small groups was be
ginning. The rugged nature of the terrain and the sub-zero
weather made it most difficult for his G-2 spies to operate
on both sides of the Yalu. And his own government had for
bidden all aerial reconnaissance north of the river.

At best the entire operation was a desperate one. He had
the remnants of the North Korean Army rocking on its heels.
With luck he could push ahead for the knockout. All his com
manders and intelligence groups realized the possibility of a
sudden attack by infiltrated Red Chinese. However, to hold fast
and await developments would probably have been disastrous.
If the Red Chinese forces proved to be light in numbers, it
would have been a fatal blunder not to have finished off the war.
If the Chinese proved to be overwhelmingly strong, then not to
move forward at this moment, with winter swiftly coming on,
would have permitted the enemy to strike in force, infiltrate
southward between MacArthur '$ armies, and cut off his sup
plies.

To withdraw his troops at this crucial moment would also
have put him in an extremely dangerous position. If there
were strong, organized groups of the Red Chinese, they could
then attack his exposed flanks and rear. To lunge ahead in one
great, final effort might still be effective, despite the very real
possibility of disaster. If the Chinese should prove danger
ously strong, it might, nevertheless, be safer to attack immedi
ately than to try to hold his ground or attempt withdrawal.

On November 24 MacArthur flew to an advance air strip
for a final conference and personal reconnaissance. In semi-
private conversation with a division commander he dropped
the remark that if the great attack succeeded, "the boys
might be home by Christmas/' "Home/' to MacArthur, with
Christmas 31 days away, meant the rest areas around Pusan or

483

across the narrow straits to Japan. Newsmen picked up the
sentence and sent it spinning around the world.

MacArthur had no illusions about the gamble he was tak
ing in this final great effort. He and Walker and Almond
knew well the formidable nature of the high mountainous area
in the center of the peninsula. They were all concerned over
the wide rugged gap that stretched between the Eighth Army
and the independent X Corps, in the neighborhood of the dif
ficult country around the great Choshin dam, 60 miles from
the east-coast port of Hungnam. They understood clearly that
they lacked the troops to guard the frozen passes in this central
range running from north to south. If all-out Chinese inter
vention came, they had insufficient ground forces to stop its
initial drive and shock. It would become a new war.

The ist Marine Division and units of the 7th Division held
both sides of the Choshin reservoir. On to the northeast along
the coast where the upper border of Korea stretched to a
width of almost 400 miles, the iyth Regiment of the U. S.
7th Division had driven straight to the hilltops and north
slopes that looked down on the narrow Yalu river, far from its
mouth. On the northern side of the river lay the ' 'privileged
sanctuary" of Manchuria. Here, far from its mouth, the Yalu
was hardly more than a little stream, reminding the lonely,
homesick American soldiers of little rivers they knew in their
own far-away homeland.

It was a thin and tenuous U. N. line that ran on to the
west at various distances below the river. In spots the uneven
front was little more than a hard night's march from the Yalu
for the swift-moving intruders, lightly equipped and fired by
fanatical courage and bitter hatred.

On this November 24, 1950, after MacArthur drove by jeep
from one division headquarters to another, he returned to his
plane and as soon as it was airborne ordered his pilot, Tony
Storey, to head for the west coast. When they picked up the
river's mouth at Sinuiju, he told him to turn sharply £o the
right and fly eastward up the Yalu. The plane with its fighter
escort kept two or three miles south of the broad river, and
with perfect visibility at 16,000 feet MacArthur studied both
sides of the river valley, rimmed in for the most part by snow-
484

covered hills and mountains. It was a motionless front, with
no evidence from the skies of enemy movement or build-up of
any kind.

Back in Tokyo MacArthur's communique gave a definite
impression of his high hopes. How much of his confidence
was for troop consumption and how much to deceive the en
emy, and how far he himself might have been in error is pure
speculation. His statement, which later was so bitterly criti
cized, read:

The United Nations massive compression envelopment in
North Korea against the new Red armies operating there is now
approaching its decisive effort. The isolating component of the
pincer, our Air Forces of all types, have for the last three weeks,
in a sustained attack of model coordination and effectiveness,
successfully interdicted enemy lines of support from the north
so that further reinforcement therefrom has been sharply cur
tailed and essential supplies markedly limited.

The eastern sector of the pincer, with noteworthy and effective
naval support, has steadily advanced in a brilliant tactical move
ment and has now reached a commanding enveloping position
cutting in two the northern reaches of the enemy's geographical
potential. [A reference to the fact that the lyth Regiment of the
U. S. 7th Division had approached the Yalu at Hysanjin.]

This morning the western sector of the pincer moved forward
in general assault in an effort to complete the compression and
close the vise.

If successful this should for all practical purposes end the war,
restore peace and unity to Korea, enable the prompt withdrawal
of United Nations military forces, and permit the complete as
sumption by the Korean people and nation of full sovereignty
and international equality. It is that for which we fight.

Within 48 hours after MacArthur's reconnaissance all uncer
tainty had ended. The great gamble had lost.

Little opposition was met the first day on either the west
or east fronts by the advancing U. N. and ROK troops. But
by the end of the second day a strong counteroffensive by Chi
nese Communist troops drove down the narrow, twisting val-

485

leys of the central north-south range, penetrating to a depth
of as much as 20 miles. The Red columns then turned sharply
to the west to overwhelm two ROK divisions on the right of
the Eighth Army. The U. S. 2nd Division, backing up the
two ROK divisions, suddenly faced on its right flank the full
fury of this great enveloping movement. The shoe was now on
the other foot.

What had seemed ample plans for an orderly retirement
of the U. N. forces had been prepared, in case overwhelming
Chinese numbers were encountered. But there had been little
advance information concerning this powerful attack of no
less than seven Chinese divisions, which swiftly drove a wedge
down through these rugged and apparently impassable moun
tains between the U. N. east and west forces.

These attacking Red units had been carefully hidden above
the U. N. lines, and then thousands of lightly equipped Chi
nese foot soldiers, each carrying his own slender rations of
ground grain and 200 rounds of rifle ammunition, poured
down through the mountain passes despite the sub-zero
weather. Others, packing light machine guns and mortars,
moved straight to the flanks and rear of the surprised U. N.
and ROK troops, cutting their supply lines, blocking the roads
of retreat and going to their own death with the same fanaticism
displayed by the Japanese in the great war.

Meanwhile the Eighth Army divisions to the left or west of
the U. S. 2nd Division, fighting with superb courage on the
flank of Walker's Eighth Army, were being assailed by direct
frontal attacks, launched by the Chinese without regard to casu
alties. The U. N. forces gave ground, but they were able to
evacuate all their heavy guns and equipment. Within six days
the Eighth Army was driven below the Chongchon river,
and when the Chinese assaults gradually weakened, the. Amer
ican, South Korean and U. N. forces crossed the Taedong
river to the south to positions that permitted them to regroup
and reorganize their units. Only the U. S. 2nd Division, fight
ing desperately to hold the Eighth Army's flank, had lost
heavily in this vicious action on the west side of the penin
sula.

Over toward the central area, parts of the U. S. ist Marine
486

Division and units of the 7th Division of Almond's X Corps
found themselves surrounded in a mountainous pocket below
the great Choshin reservoir. Chinese forces in large numbers
had quickly turned eastward from their middle wedge, to cut
in below the reservoir, and were now driving hard for the east
coast, in a vast enveloping movement that would deny the
U. N. and the South Korean forces of the X Corps all escape
except by sea. But more of this battle later.

Two days after the U. N. offensive had commenced, Mac-
Arthur's intelligence estimate of the Chinese strength rose to
80,000, and within a week the figure was set at 200,000. Later
a revised figure gave the number of Chinese Communists at
a quarter-million, while the estimate of additional freshly or
ganized and re-equipped North Korean troops rose as high as
150,000.

MacArthur apparently had not anticipated the unique abil
ity of the Chinese leaders to slip tens of thousands of troops
across the Yalu without detection. These lightly armed Red
Chinese soldiers, clad only in padded coolie garments, operated
in small, self-contained units, and by night marches they
moved safely into Korean mountain hide-outs. From these
their Chinese leaders secretly poured them down the central
mountain valleys for their surprise flank attacks.

No single agency of information of the several that belonged
to the U. S. Central Intelligence, the State Department and the
G-2 sections of the U. N. and ROK armies had fully warned
of the presence of such gigantic hordes that seemed to spring
up from nowhere. It had been a brilliant and superbly exe
cuted enemy surprise move, the strength of which was fully
uncovered only when MacArthur ordered his attack of No
vember 24.

He was long to face bitter criticism for this failure to esti
mate properly the size of the Red invading forces. But prob
ably had he known the full facts, there would have been no
alternative better than the course he followed. Certainly he
would have exercised the greatest caution in what promised to
be the final battle for victory, had he sensed the almost unbe
lievable fact that he would be denied the full use of the only
weapon — his offensive air arm — that could swing the tide in his

487

favor. It was easy for his critics to see the picture after the
disaster was over. The fact that no less than two million North
Korean refugees fled southward, crowding the roads and hamp
ering troop movements, brought fresh complications to Mac-
Arthur's commanders.

Four days after he had begun what was now described as a
great "reconnaissance-in-force," MacArthur issued a communi-
qu6 that made no attempt to conceal the facts.

Enemy reactions developed in the course of our assault opera
tions of the past four days disclose that a major segment of the
Chinese continental armed forces in army, corps and divisional
organization of an aggregate strength of over 200,000 men, is
now arrayed against the United Nations forces in North Korea.

There exists the obvious intent and preparation for support
of these forces by heavy reinforcements now concentrated within
the privileged sanctuary north of the international boundary and
constantly moving forward.

Consequently, we face an entirely new war. This has shattered
the high hopes we entertained that the intervention of the
Chinese was only of a token nature on a volunteer and individual
basis as publicly announced, and that therefore the war in Korea
could be brought to a rapid close by our movement to the inter
national boundary and the prompt withdrawal thereafter of
United Nations forces, leaving Korean problems for settlement
by the Koreans themselves.

It now appears to have been the enemy's intent, in breaking
off contact with our forces some two weeks ago, to secure the
time necessary surreptitiously to build up for a later surprise
assault upon our lines in overwhelming force, taking advantage
of the freezing of all rivers and roadbeds which would have
materially reduced the effectiveness of our air interdiction and
permitted a greatly accelerated forward movement of enemy
reinforcements and supplies. This plan has been disrupted by
our own offensive action, which forced upon the enemy a pre
mature engagement.

Possibly due to orders or suggestions from Washington the
General added a concluding paragraph to his comment:

This situation, repugnant as it may be, poses issues beyond
the authority of the United Nations military council — issues
488

which must find their solution within the councils of the United
Nations and chancelleries of the world.

Already a surge of violent personal attacks and bitter criti
cism against MacArthur began to appear. Certain correspond
ents at the front, who had for some time been more or less un
friendly to him, made no attempt to soften their attacks on
him. He was accused of making "a momentous blunder." One
Washington columnist declared that "MacArthur thus walked
into a huge, well-laid trap/' And the correspondent of a weekly
news magazine insisted that "perhaps it might become the
worst military disaster in American history."

On December i, the day that a special message was sent to
Congress by the President, MacArthur gave out a statement
in answer to a series of questions cabled him by Hugh Baillie,
President of the United Press. Part of the statement read:

Never before has the patience of man been more sorely tried
nor high standards of human behavior been more patiently and
firmly upheld than during the course of the Korean campaigns.
From the initiation of the North Korean aggression against the
Republic of Korea until the total defeat of the North Korean
armies, support from the Communist Chinese from behind the
privileged sanctuary of neutral boundaries was open and no
torious and all-inclusive. . . .

The existing situation under which the United Nations Com
mand is confronted with a new and fresh and well trained and
equipped enemy of vastly superior and ever increasing numbers
initiating an entirely new war to cover the North Korean defeat,
results largely from the acceptance of military odds without prece
dent in history — the odds of permitting offensive action without
defensive retaliation. These odds have been and are being cheer
fully accepted in the effort to uphold the high principles and
standards which have characterized guiding policy and given
nobility to the cause for which we fight, and to further the uni
versal desire that the war be localized. Indeed, throughout the
war against the North Koreans we meticulously respected and
held inviolate the international boundary, and I at no time even
recommended that authority be granted to retaliate beyond it.
Against such odds, officers and men of all services and participat
ing nations have fought, and if need be, will continue to fight,
with unexcelled gallantry.

489

MacArthur's patience had almost reached its breaking
point. Open and frequent angry criticism now appearing in
the foreign press seemed to be the last straw. Washington and
the U. N. at Lake Success might be impressed by the logic of
these adverse opinions, but certainly he was not. He spared no
effort to show exactly how he felt, as he continued in the
special statement:

With this background of devotion to high principles and in
vincible determination to achieve the stated objectives of the
United Nations, it is disturbing indeed to note the irresponsible
comments appearing in responsible sections of the European
press. There appears to be a general failure, intentional or from
misinformation, to comprehend the mission prescribed for this
Command by resolutions of the United Nations of which their
governments were joint architects and directors, or fairly to recog
nize that in success or adversity this Command has proceeded
unerringly in compliance with controlling policies and directives.

I can only attribute this to a somewhat selfish though most
short-sighted viewpoint. To the European the welfare and secu
rity of Europe is naturally paramount. He has no fear of attack
from the West, solely from the East. It is not unusual therefore
that he sees in every dedication of friendly resource toward the
stabilization of Asia but a subtraction from that available for
the betterment and security of Europe. This is of course fallacious
reasoning. Any breach freedom in the East carries with it a sin
ister threat to freedom in the West. The issue is a global one
and failure to comprehend this fact carries the germs of freedom's
ultimate destruction. If the fight is not waged with courage and
invincible determination to meet the challenge here, it will
indeed be fought, and possibly lost, on the battlefields of
Europe. . . .

There were immediate and violent retorts to the General's
remarks on the "somewhat selfish though most short-sighted
viewpoint" of certain European nations. He was accused of
entering the field of international politics and of overstepping
the boundaries of a field commander. During the next two days
he answered no less than five cabled requests from newspapers
and news magazines for public statements.

For possibly the first time in his life his professional military
reputation was being attacked. He tried his best to hold his
490

temper and to explain as simply as he could how he had
arrived at his decision to move against the Red Chinese, even
though far from certain of their real strength. In answer to
one of several questions from a list submitted by a group of
Tokyo correspondents, he wrote out a concise explanation. It
read:

This probing movement [of November 24] was essential to
develop the Chinese purpose and strength. The only other re
course would have been to resign ourselves to the possibility of
a devastating strike in such power as to completely destroy the
Eighth Army. It was the only chance we had to ascertain the
truth or falsity of the Chinese contention that his intervention
was merely on a volunteer and individual basis. The proximity
of the main borderline to the battlefront, only a night's march
separating them, and the impossibility of reconnoitering beyond
the border lines by our planes made it imperative to develop
the true state of affairs.

I agree completely with General Walker's estimate that this
probing effort was made none too soon. Had our forces remained
indefinitely impassive, it would not only have foregone all chances
of concluding the North Korean campaign which would have
signalled the withdrawal of main forces from Korea and the
avoidance of a long winter stalemate, but prolonged inertia would
have greatly increased our jeopardy by permitting an indefinite
build-up of the enemy force, which might well have resulted in
the complete destruction of the Eighth Army. The present ad
verse situation is not in the slightest degree due to our assault
tactics but is the sole result of the enemy's predominant strength
in numbers. In my opinion, it was a fortunate move.

Suddenly the White House stepped into the picture. The
all-powerful State Department and its comrades in the XL N.
had their own twisted versions and desires to be turned
out by the official propaganda machine. On December 6, ten
days after the disastrous turn of events, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff dispatched a cable to MacArthur embodying a general
Presidential order allegedly sent to all responsible officials.
One paragraph read that "no speech, press release, or other
statement concerning military policy should be released until
it has received clearance from the Department of Defense."

491

A special clause directed to the Secretary of State and Secre
tary of Defense was obviously intended for MacArthur. It said:

Officials overseas, including military commanders and diplo
matic representatives, should be ordered to exercise extreme cau
tion in public statements, to clear all but routine statements with
their departments, and to refrain from direct communication on
military or foreign policy with newspapers, magazines or other
publicity media in the United States.

The above is transmitted to you for guidance and appropriate
action.

There was nothing for MacArthur to do but to accept what
he knew was a full-fledged gag.

Meanwhile the Chinese Communist emissaries from Peiping
had arrived in New York City and were arrogantly announcing
that before they would enter into a discussion over Korea,
the United States must be put on trial before the United
Nations for its actions in entering the civil war.

By late December it was clear that Walker had saved his
Eighth Army, although his 6th and 8th ROK Divisions were
overrun, and his fine U. S. 2nd Division was badly cut up.
The "human-wave" tactics of the Communists had been difficult
and costly to stop, but Walker and his commanders had dis
covered within a week after the first attack started that the
Reds seemed to lack the ability fully to exploit their gains.
Once the momentum of their attack was lost, they had to stop
and re-group and bring in fresh troops and supplies. Walker
made full use of these lulls, and by December 15 his forces
were in defensive positions below the Imjin river and along
the 38th parallel.

From November 27, when the Chinese counter offensive
started, on to December 12, Walker's four U. S. divisions
had suffered casualties that totalled 6,326, with an additional
1,011 for other U. N. units involved. This did not include the
ROK divisions. Only the U. S. 2nd Infantry had been dis
astrously hit; its losses numbered 4,131 in killed, wounded and
492

missing, roughly 25% of its total strength during the fifteen days
it had fought to protect the vulnerable right flank of the Eighth
Army. It was hardly comparable to the 60% casualties by the
U. S. division principally involved during the first fourteen days
of fighting in the Bulge in December of 1944. That catastrophe,
due almost entirely to faulty and inexcusable intelligence, had
been accepted as merely one of the misfortunes of war. But not
so for MacArthur in Korea.

On the eastern side of the peninsula the great counter-
offensive had caught Almond's X Corps stretched from a posi
tion 60 miles from the Siberian border to a point westward
on the Yalu, and then on southwest to the Choshin reservoir,
in the mountainous areas in the center. From here the lightly
held U. N. front ran in a wide arc that swung to the south
eastward as far down the Sea of Japan as the port of Wonsan.
At the moment the Reds struck, the ROK Capital Division
held the post near the Siberian border at Hyesanjin: the
i7th Regiment of the U. S. yth Division looked down on the
Yalu; and the rugged country around the Choshin reservoir
on the southwest was defended by the ist and 7th Regi
ments of the U. S, ist Marines, and a battalion each from the
gist and g^nd regiments of the 7th Division, with a rein
forced company of British Marine commandos. Such were the
dispositions on the east when the Red Chinese started their
vicious counteroffensive.

Orders were received for the Marines of the X Corps to at
tempt the relief of the hard-pressed right flank of Walker's
Eighth Army on to the west of the central gap, but before they
could undertake the mission, the Chinese attacked them in
great numbers from the north and west. Withdrawing down
the west side of the great reservoir, they were joined by the
two battalions of the U. S. 7th Division and the British Com
mandos from the east side of the dam, only to discover that
the enemy had cut their escape and supply route to the south
east toward the port city of Hungnam.

Fighting desperately, the embattled group attacked the en
emy concentrations and roadblocks and foot by foot drove
their way toward the coast. Enemy rifle and machine guns and
mortars swept the slippery, frozen trails and hairpin curves.

At times the U. N. troops were completely enveloped, and
there seemed little chance of escaping death or capture.

Their main hope lay in help from the air. Cut off from
all supplies, they would have perished from the ceaseless at
tacks of the enemy and the cold and exposure, had it not
been for the hundreds of air missions that brought them am
munition, food and medicine. Supplies of all sorts were para
chuted to them, and wherever a makeshift air strip could be
found, fearless C-47 pilots quickly landed their food and am
munition, and when they took off, they carried wounded and
sick men. Time and again pilots from the Far East air force and
the Marine and Navy air units risked their lives in these er
rands of mercy. A total of almost 5,000 U. N. wounded and
sick men were evacuated by air. Many were the victims of
frostbite, and were not listed as battle casualties.

At one spot on the endless 6o~mile journey a so-yard sec
tion of one-way road had to be carved out of a rock, hillside
and a new escape route established. A little later a key bridge
was suddenly blown up by the Communists, and it seemed
that only by abandoning all their vehicles and heavy equip
ment and even their wounded, could the Americans and their
friends possibly escape from the trap. But the next day the
Combat Cargo Command dispatched 8 C-ngs, each carrying a
two-ton bridge span, which was carefully dropped near the
treacherous chasm. Army combat engineers attached to the
ground force somehow managed to bolt together the spans and
swing them across the gap, in the face of heavy mortar and
machine-gun fire. Once again the road was open, and the
trucks carrying the dead and wounded moved on toward the
Sea of Japan.

MacArthur ordered that every possible effort be made to
aid the survivors, and shortly a reinforced battalion of the ist
Marine Regiment, accompanied by a special force of Army
combat engineers, rolled out of Hamhung, determined to
fight its way to a junction with its comrades. It was a great
day for the bruised and exhausted men of the retreating col
umn when heavy firing was heard far down the escape route.
Then the fighting came closer, and finally the rescuers broke
through.
494

The heavy roadblocks in front had been broken, and now
the weary men, braced by this fresh unit, battled their way
down the high mountain passes and icy trails to the gentle
slopes that led to the coast and freedom. For 13 days these
men, who had at the beginning numbered almost 20,000,
had fought for their lives.

The U. S. grd Division's 65th Regiment from Puerto Rico
now formed the protecting rear guard as the survivors made
their way to the port city of Hungnam.

MacArthur flew in on December 11 to meet them and to
thank them for their brave fight. After all, it was the Chinese
Communists and not these veterans who had really lost the
campaign. The Reds had failed in both their east and west
attempts at complete envelopment and destruction of the
U. N. and South Korean forces. The enemy had taken terrible
losses, in certain frontal attacks possibly running as high as
10 to i against them. The U. N. forces had been driven back,
but they had not been annihilated, and with help and luck
they could still win and Korea be free and united.

Here on the east Almond's three American divisions had
up to December 12 suffered a total of 5,638 battle casual
ties — and probably an almost equal number of sick men, most
of whom were hospitalized for frostbite. The ist Marine Division
led in battle casualties with 2,891; the 7th Infantry Division was
next with 2,097; and the battle losses of the 3rd Infantry Di
vision were 650.

The i7th Regiment of the U. S. 7th Division of Almond's
X Corps, which reached the Yalu, and the ROK Capital Di
vision, which had penetrated deep into the country toward
Siberia, along with other scattered outfits, had safely pulled
back shortly after the Red counterattack opened and had ei
ther embarked by sea or gone southward over the east coastal
roads toward the great concentration port of Hungnam. A
strong defense perimeter was now thrown around the city as
preparations went ahead for a complete evacuation by water.

A total of 193 vessels was employed in the vast undertaking.
It went smoothly ahead while the Chinese Communists fed in
piecemeal thousands of fanatical troops, which were destroyed
in their wild attempts to penetrate the defense perimeter.

495

From Hungnam and the two other ports of Wonsan and Sing-
jin, a grand total of 105,000 U. N. and ROK troops were evac
uated with 98,000 civilian refugees. In all 350,000 tons of
cargo were salvaged, and 17,500 vehicles were safely loaded.
Even a number of captured Russian-made self-propelled
76-mm. guns were taken out.

For two weeks the fighting around the great arc of the per
imeter at Hungnam was desperate and almost continu
ous. Newly organized Red North Korean divisions were brought
down through the mountain passes and thrown recklessly
against the defending lines. Gradually the perimeter was
shortened, until finally on the day before Christmas only the
rear guard, comprising 9,000 men of' the U. S. 3rd Infantry
Division, manned the inner defense lines.

A scorched-earth policy had been followed by the U. N.
forces, and on this final day, while carrier-based planes show
ered the enemy areas with rockets and bombs of every descrip
tion, the remaining American troops took to the open-
mouthed landing ships and shoved off. It was 2:46 on the
afternoon of this day before Christmas 1950 when the last
man was safely embarked.

The military crisis that MacArthur suddenly faced in the last
week of November had been squarely and successfully met.
Despite his heavy losses, both his Eighth Army on the west and
his independent X Corps on the east had been withdrawn
successfully. But all North Korea was in the hands of the Com
munists by Christmas.

MacArthur had been forced by Washington and the United
Nations to fight this wholly new war with his offensive air arm
tied behind his back. The speculative fear that Russia might
start World War III if the Manchurian border was crossed
in the air was still the No. i consideration in Washington,
Lake Success, London, Delhi and a score of other capitals.

To this paralyzing effect of fear there was now added a
general confusion and what appeared to many to be a devious
496

shiftiness on the part of the leadership in Washington. Three
days after the great Chinese Communist attack began on
November 26, President Truman issued a statement that
was followed on the next day by a special message to Con
gress. A threat that the atomic bomb might be used brought
Prime Minister Attlee by fastest plane from London. He was
assured by Truman and Acheson that no step would be taken
that need alarm the Socialist Premier, regardless of what
might happen to American and U. N. troops in Korea.

It would seem a complete psychosis of fear suddenly para
lyzed all efforts by American leaders and their friends in the
free world. They seemed unable longer to think clearly and
logically about the possibility of the Soviet Union start
ing World War III in retaliation for an American and U. N.
move against Red Chinese territory. The timid or designing
men in control apparently subscribed to the theory that the
moment an American plane crossed the Red Chinese border
Russia would start a full global war.

Both Washington and the General Assembly of the U. N.
apparently overlooked the fact that Red China had deliber
ately made open war against America and the United Na
tions and their ward Korea, and that it was their right and
duty to fight the Red invaders with every available weapon —
including the air arm. The pro-Russian appeasers apparently
dominated all official thought and propaganda.

So strong was the pressure from England and India and Eu
ropean nations generally, that the patent argument that Rus
sia herself did not want war and was not yet ready for war
was overlooked or pushed aside. To MacArthur and his peo
ple under the gun it was abundantly clear that Russia needed
several more years to build her long-range bomber planes and
stock-pile her atomic bombs. Time was what Russia needed
most, and MacArthur held to the solid belief that only an
actual invasion of the homeland of the Soviet Union could
have pulled her into war.

Yet so complete had been the poisoning of the American
mind by Red-spy and fellow-traveller propaganda and by the
terror-stricken and, in many cases, disloyal leaders that Amer-

497

ica was no longer master of her own fate. Her once brave and
open mind was turned into a hotbed for carefully planted
seeds of fear and confusion.

MacArthur was unable at this time fully to comprehend to
what a great extent un-American forces and pressures had
taken over the direction of American foreign policies. But he
knew that never before in her history had his country been so
deliberately handicapped in war that her field commanders,
once they had their directives, were prohibited from using
every force and every weapon they possessed to meet the en
emy and defeat him quickly.

On December 14, 1950, the U. N. General Assembly "viewed
with grave concern the situation in the Far East," and passed
a resolution requesting the President of the Assembly, Nasrol-
lah Entezam, of Iran, to appoint a group of three to deter
mine a basis for a cease-fire. On December 23 Communist
Peiping promptly turned down the suggestion. This was fol
lowed by a bitterly resisted resolution of the U. N. Security
Council declaring the Chinese Communists to be the aggres
sors.

But what MacArthur needed was a clear-cut directive from
the Joint Chiefs of Staff granting him the right to win the
war, with the privilege of hot pursuit for his hamstrung
planes, allowing them to enter the "privileged sanctuary" of
Manchuria, when driving off Red planes attacking them from
the far side of the Yalu.

The theory of hot pursuit is based on an ancient doctrine
of criminal law that permits a peace officer who is closely pur
suing a felon to cross beyond the area of his jurisdiction in
order to capture the criminal. The granting of immunity from
pursuit to Communist planes attacking U. N. air forces inside
North Korea was in direct opposition to this old and accepted
doctrine of criminal and international law.

During the days of late November and early December,
1950, when MacArthur's forces faced the possibility of de
struction by invading Red Chinese forces from north of the
498

Yalu, he could secure no authority to pursue these attacking
MIG's to their bases, nor was he permitted air reconnaissance
over Manchuria. However, early in January of 1951 there
seemed to be a unanimous agreement among MacArthur, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President and even the Secretary of
State that his planes should be granted this right of hot pursuit
after being attacked.

Sufficient authority for the action lay in the command func
tion delegated by the U. N. to the United States government,
but the Secretary of Defense George Marshall now hedged
by asking Acheson to inform the thirteen U. N. nations having
armed forces actually engaged in some form or other in
the Korean conflict of the probable change in policy. Acheson
took it upon himself not to inform the allies but to question
them regarding their views on this matter — a matter that
meant life or death to the men fighting against heavy odds in
Korea. The first six nations approached, according to the sub
sequent testimony of the Secretary, stood out against the pro
posal of permitting MacArthur to exercise this needed military
action of hot pursuit. So it was that the American Secretary of
State's mind, if not already fixed, was made up for him by
distinctly foreign pressures. Neither the needs of American
soldiers and airmen nor traditional national honor had much
or anything to do with his decision.

Shortly after MacArthur's request for hot pursuit was turned
down by Washington, he asked a second time for the right to
bomb troublesome Racin, the busy Red Chinese supply base
in North Korea some 35 miles from the Siberian-Korean bor
der. For a second time he was promptly turned down, although
his bomber commanders had given him positive assur
ance that there was no chance of violating Siberian territory
in the air attack.

Sometime before this MacArthur had helped in drawing up
a study for victory that was made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The paper then was duly presented to Secretary of Defense
Marshall. MacArthur's troops were now holding a line that
roughly strung along the 37th parallel. This marked the low
point of the great U. N. withdrawal. Pressure by the Com
munist Chinese was negligible, and the time was arriving

499

when MacArthur and Ridgway felt they might regain the of
fensive and start the long march back up the peninsula. (Lt.
General Matthew Ridgway, with the personal approval of Mac-
Arthur, was brought to Korea to command the Eighth Army,
after the courageous Walker had been killed in a jeep accident
just before Christmas. The X Corps would soon be evacuated
from Hungnam to become a part of the Eighth Army.)

MacArthur and his commanders realized fully at this mo
ment of decision how much it would mean if a driving will-to-
win could replace the fear and the restraining attitude that
prevailed in Washington and at the U. N. General Assembly.
MacArthur, as always, thought only in terms of victory and in
the spirit of the offensive. He had contributed four specific
points to the over-all list of 16 suggestions about what should
be done to win the war and remove the threat of a disastrous
stalemate. Apparently his four clauses won the approval of
the JCS, but on January 9 Secretary of Defense Marshall
ordered that these specific MacArthur suggestions be thrown
out. Who counselled Marshall in arriving at this momentous
decision is still not known. The four proposals MacArthur
made were:

1 intensification of the economic blockade against China

2 imposition of a naval blockade against the China coast

3 removal of restrictions on air reconnaissance of China's
coastal areas and Manchuria

4 removal of restrictions on the forces of the Republic of
China on Formosa, with logistical support to contribute to
their effective operation against the Chinese mainland.

About this same time it appeared to MacArthur's G.H.Q.
that there was a slacking off in the censorship gag that had
been imposed by the President on December 6. As it was inter
preted in Tokyo, the original directive applied only to formal
public statements and not to communiques, correspondence or
personal conversations. At a press conference in Washington
shortly after the turn of the year, the President had denied
any curb on MacArthur's authority "to speak freely on the
Korean war/'

Exactly two months after the Chinese Communists entered
the war in force, MacArthur ordered the launching of the first
500

large U. N. counteroffensive. His battle lines were now
roughly 200 miles south of the former extreme positions he
had held on the North Korean front, from which his Eighth
Army and the X Corps had begun their great attacks of
November 24 and their subsequent retreat a few days later.

The X Corps, now re-grouped and re-organized, added mate
rially to the power of Ridgway's Eighth Army. MacArthur had
been severely criticized in certain military circles for retaining
this X Corps under his own G.H.Q. after the Inchon landing
and its subsequent dispatch to the east coast as an independ
ent unit.

His critics claimed that the swift surprise penetration in late
November by Red Chinese infantry divisions through the moun
tainous gap that separated the Eighth Army and the X Corps
was primarily the cause for the vast disaster that followed. Mac-
Arthur's defenders answered that lack of troops alone had
made it impossible to man adequately the gap between the
two forces, and as a consequence it had seemed most practical
to operate the two groups independently. When they were
again in close contact after the end of the great Red attack,
MacArthur ordered the X Corps to become a part of Ridgway's
Eighth Army.

Toward the middle of January U. N. reconnaissance groups
prodding the enemy front suddenly discovered little opposition,
and on January 25, 1951, a concerted counteroffensive was
begun. By February 10 the port of Inchon and the important
Kimpo airfield were re-captured, but Seoul still remained in
Communist hands. Resistance suddenly stiffened, and on the
night of February 11 and 12 the enemy once again drove hard
to the south down the lower middle corridor of the peninsula.

The following day MacArthur flew in from Tokyo for per
sonal observation and for a front-line conference with Ridgway
and his commanders. Probably due to the handicaps still put
on his Air Force, his communique ended on a pessimistic note:

Talk of crossing the g8th parallel at the present stage of the
campaign, except by scattered patrol action incidental to the tac
tical situation, is purely academic. From a military standpoint we
must materially reduce the existing superiority of our Chinese
Communist enemy engaging with impunity in undeclared war

501

against us, with the unprecedented military advantage of sanc
tuary protection for his military potential against our counter
attack upon Chinese soil, before we can seriously consider
conducting major operations north of that geographical line. . . .

The new Red counterattack of middle February had won
some success in the center of the peninsula, but within ten
days the lost ground had been regained by the U. N. troops.
MacArthur pondered the idea of a by-pass far up the west
coast that might permit him to repeat his great strategic and
tactical victory after the Inchon landing of September 1950.
But he did not have the troops to dare undertake any such
operation.

The establishment of NATO and its immediate imple
mentation in December 1950 by the dispatching of General
Eisenhower to Europe again placed European demands above
American interests in the Far East. And without sufficient re
inforcements and the right to wage a war for victory and to
make full use of all available weapons and air here in Korea,
MacArthur and his advisors knew perfectly well how little
chance they had if they attempted any bold and decisive
strategic move.

Once again a large-scale participation in Europe had as
sumed No. i priority over the Pacific. It was apparent that
for a second time America was abandoning her own soldiers
and their war for survival in the Far East, in favor of respond
ing to the pressure for European help, when it was doubtful
whether immediate military help was needed. Obviously there
was still a lack of understanding in Washington of the fact
that Asia was as important as Europe in the global strategy of
checking the Communist expansion. Likewise there was a com
plete failure to estimate Europe's lack of a will to fight.

Some hidden directing power, some Red plan or Communist
line exercising its controlling supervision in a secret web of
intrigue seemed actually to be pulling the strings and calling
the tunes for certain of the spiritless leaders in Washington
and at the U. N. It seems certain that MacArthur glimpsed
the plot that pointed to his own ultimate sacrifice and to a
war stalemate as part of the appeasement policy to Russia and
Red China. Suspicion must have entered his mind that he was
502

not supposed to win the Korean war as long as there was the
slightest chance of any retaliation by Russia. General
Eisenhower and his NATO must now come first in everything.

[The influence of foreign political considerations and pres
sures in dictating the half-hearted directives that were sent to
MacArthur were almost as clear to him at the time as they
appeared later when he could see them in retrospect. His ul
timate analysis of the motives behind his orders were eventu
ally contained in a letter he sent to Senator Harry F. Byrd of
Virginia on April 19, 1953, in response to a request by the
Senator for information regarding the artillery shell shortages
in Korea. Part of the statement covers so accurately the middle
period of MacArthur's Korean days that it is well worth read
ing:

The inertia of our diplomacy failed utterly to utilize the vic
tory of Inchon and subsequent destruction of the North Korean
armies as the basis for swift and dynamic political action to
restore peace and unity to Korea.

This was one of the great contributing causes to the subsequent
new war into which we were later plunged by Red China. At
this time a new war with this much more formidable foe was
not foreseen. . . .

My own military estimate was that with our largely unopposed
air forces, with their atomic potential, capable of destroying at
will bases of attack and lines of supply north as well as south
of the Yalu River, no Chinese military commander would dare
hazard the commitment of large forces upon the Korean penin
sula. The risk of their utter destruction, through lack of supply
would be too great.

But by one process or another it was conjectured by, or con
veyed to, the Red Chinese that even though they entered the fray
in large force it would be under the sanctuary of being relieved
from any destructive action of our military forces within their
own areas. Such a limitation upon the utilization of available
military force to repel an enemy attack has no precedent either
in our own history or, so far as I know, in the history of the world.
The results were disastrous beyond imagination and are still
incalculable. When the Chinese Communists actually struck
without warning, and my order to destroy the bridges at their

503

points of entry over the Yalu into Korea was immediately counter
manded from Washington, I realized for the first time the extraor
dinary decision which had been made to deny me the use of my
full military power to safeguard the lives of my soldiers and
ensure the safety of the army.

To me it clearly foreshadowed the tragic situation which has
since developed and left me with a sense of shock I had never
before experienced in a long life crammed with explosive reac
tions and momentous hazards. . . .]

On the eve of a new U. N. counteroffensive Mac Arthur again
flew to the front and gave his full approval to the plans for a
ground by-pass of Seoul, a surprise air-drop at Munsan, some
30 miles above the South Korean capital, and then a general
drive northward on a broad front across the peninsula at the
g8th parallel. He released his military comment in Tokyo on
March 7, the day marked for the important U. N. counterof
fensive. The statement seemed to bear the marks of a man
desperately trying to keep himself under control and to fight
on despite the inhibitions and restraints imposed on him by
decisions that he held in great suspicion. His words reflected
his futile attempts to fight a fire with half the water supply
turned off. It read in part:

Assuming no diminution of the enemy's flow of ground forces
and materiel to the Korean battle area, a continuation of the
existing limitation upon our freedom of counter-offensive action,
and no major additions to our organizational strength, the battle
lines cannot fail in time to reach a point of theoretical military
stalemate.

Thereafter our further advance would militarily benefit the
enemy more than it would ourselves. The exact place of stabiliza
tion is of necessity a fluctuating variable, dependent upon the
shifting relative strengths of the forces committed, and will con
stantly move up or down.

Even now there are indications that the enemy is attempting
to build up from China a new and massive offensive for the
spring. . . .

Vital decisions have yet to be made — decisions far beyond the
504

scope of the authority vested in me as the Military Commander,
decisions which are neither solely political nor solely military,
but which must provide, on the highest international levels, an
answer to the obscurities which now becloud the unsolved prob
lems raised by Red China's undeclared war in Korea.

The final paragraph epitomized to him the deep injustice
of his position. He still could get no final decisions from Wash
ington — ''decisions far beyond the scope of authority vested in
me as the Military Commander, decisions which are neither
solely political nor solely military."

The confused and badgered Joint Chiefs of Staff under the
authority of General Marshall, Secretary of Defense, ap
parently had succumbed completely to the dictates of the
Department of State. As a result of this, MacArthur was
constantly hampered by a complete lack of adequate directives
or by half-hearted ones that held him responsible but refused
to give him proper authority.

Here lay at least part of the growing differences between
himself and the Big Three who were supposed to be running
the war in Washington — President Truman, Secretary of State
Acheson and Secretary of Defense Marshall.

In talks with friendly visitors General MacArthur made per
fectly clear his own disturbed feelings. He had seen the great
war victory in Europe dissipated and destroyed because of the
unrealistic attitude of American political and military leaders
who utterly failed to press the need for a long-range peace
victory. And many of these same leaders were still in authority
in Washington.

He had seen these same men or their approved successors
stand by or actually take part in the series of events that let
China go Red. They had been prepared to see Formosa fall
and South Korea overrun. With rare patience he tried his best
to get along with them. More than once members of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff were sent from Washington to Tokyo to bend
MacArthur to some phase of the administration's policy of
conciliation and appeasement. Invariably MacArthur's elo
quent and compelling logic and his appeal to pure American
interests won over these emissaries to his point of view.

505

"Go back and sell this to Washington! " MacArthur would
urge. "You believe it."

Invariably nothing happened. The arguments of what was
good for America seemed of small consequence in Washington
when placed against the constant pressures of those nations in
the U. N. General Assembly that were bent on appeasement.
Slowly MacArthur became convinced that the terrible sacrifices
made in Korea for a righteous cause had assumed a distinctly
second place, even in the minds of the highest American au
thorities. The Internationalists, the Europe-Firsters, the Red
appeasers, the U. N. worshippers were in full control. Even
the President, who had appeared to be definitely on Mac-
Arthur's side during the late days of the great war and at the
start of the Japanese occupation, now apparently had been
fully won over by the Acheson-Marshall combination.

But deeper than this personal side, MacArthur unquestion
ably sensed the determination of certain of these top-level men
of the administration to break down the American people's
resistance to a One-World, internationalist attitude, and by
propaganda and fear to appease the U. N. countries that were
condoning the great Communist advance here in stricken
Korea.

Vague rumors came to him in Tokyo that the trio in power
were now prepared to buy a cease-fire that could only lead to a
perpetual stalemate. It was to be bought at the price of the
surrender of Formosa to Red China, and her recognition and
ultimate seating in the United Nations in place of Chiang Kai-
shek's Nationalist government. MacArthur's strong sense of
realism and patriotism could not permit him to ignore what
this would mean to his country and the free world.

His counteroffensive of March 7, 1951, was completely suc
cessful. Seoul was by-passed and swiftly abandoned by the
enemy without a fight. On March 23, the U. S. iSyth Regi
mental Combat Team was parachuted to the area near Munsan,
well north of the battle lines, and an armored column drove
straight through to contact it and complete the encirclement.
But the Communists had retired before the threat, and there
was no large bag of prisoners. Four days after the air-drop,
506

two ROK corps crossed the g8th parallel near the east coast
port of Yangyang, on the Sea of Japan.

Mac Arthur was now ready to send his U. N. troops north
of the parallel as soon as he secured formal permission from
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His crippling air limitations still were
a severe handicap, but once again he was master of the battle
field. With proper backing in material and morale he thought
he could still drive out the Red Chinese invaders. Stubbornly
he planned a great double envelopment north of Inchon. He
could still win the war and return North Korea to the legal
republic.

On March 20 he received a somewhat obscure message
from the JCS. The word "State" in the message obviously re
ferred to the State Department. It read:

To: Commander in Chief, Far East, Tokyo, Japan
From: Joint Chiefs of Staff.

State planning Presidential announcement shortly that, with
clearing of bulk of South Korea of aggression, United Nations
now prepared to discuss conditions of settlement in Korea. Strong
UN feeling persists that further diplomatic effort toward settle
ment should be made before any advance with major forces north
of §8th Parallel. Time will be required to determine diplomatic
reactions and permit new negotiations that may develop. Recog
nizing that parallel has no military significance, State has asked
JCS what authority you should have to permit sufficient freedom
of action for next few weeks to provide security for UN forces
and maintain contact with enemy. Your recommendations de
sired.

It was obvious to MacArthur that a big sellout was about to
take place. Apparently the best he could hope for was a talk
marathon, a futile effort to arrive at a settlement with a
Moscow-dominated enemy that would accept no compromise
short of a united Red Korea. Four days after he received the
ambiguous message MacArthur wrote out a lengthy statement.
It must have seemed to him that this was his last chance to
help check a political move that might well be disastrous to
both Korea and America. The Eighth Army, with its air arm
still tied behind its back, was advancing and ready to cross the

507

g8th parallel. He might still press for a conclusion of the war,
despite the intrigues in Washington and in the General As
sembly of the U. N.

There can be no question but that he was now personally
proposing decisions "neither solely political nor solely mili
tary." And it is likewise evident that he was cutting squarely
across what was probably a devious and far-fetched plan by
the U. N. for an appeasement ettlement, as suggested in the
note from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. MacArthur knew the risks
of personal censure and acid criticism he was running, but
he was willing to pay the price. His public release of March
24> 195 !> read:

Operations continue according to schedule and plan. We have
now substantially cleared South Korea of organized Communist
forces. It is becoming increasingly evident that the heavy destruc
tion along the enemy's lines of supply caused by our 'round-the-
clock massive air and naval bombardment, has left his troops in
the forward battle area deficient in requirements to sustain his
operations.

This weakness is being brilliantly exploited by our ground
forces. The enemy's human-wave tactics definitely fail him as
our own forces become seasoned to this form of warfare; his
tactics of infiltration are but contributing to his piecemeal losses,
and he is showing less stamina than our own troops under rigors
of climate, terrain, and battle.

Of even greater significance than our tactical success has been
the clear revelation that this new enemy, Red China, of such
exaggerated and vaunted military power, lacks the industrial
capacity to provide adequately many critical items essential to
the conduct of modern war.

He lacks manufacturing bases and those raw materials needed
to produce, maintain, and operate even moderate air and naval
power, and he cannot provide the essential for successful ground
operations, such as tanks, heavy artillery, and other refinements
science has introduced into the conduct of military cam
paigns. . . .

These military weaknesses have been clearly and definitely

revealed since Red China entered upon its undeclared war in

Korea. Even under inhibitions which now restrict activity of the

United Nations forces and the corresponding military advantages

508

which accrue to Red China, it has been shown its complete in
ability to accomplish by force of arms the conquest of Korea.
The enemy therefore must by now be painfully aware that a
decision of the United Nations to depart from its tolerant effort
to contain the war to the area of Korea through expansion of
our military operations to his coastal areas and interior bases
would doom Red China to the risk of imminent military col
lapse. . . .

It was as if MacArthur was trying desperately to force the
U. N. itself to think clearly about the playing of its final"
trump card of threatened bombing and destruction above the
Yalu. On its face the long press release appeared to be directed
as much to the U. N. as to the enemy. He continued:

These basic facts being established, there should be no insuper
able difficulty arriving at decisions on the Korean problem, if
the issues are resolved on their own merits without being bur
dened by extraneous matters not directly related to Korea, such
as Formosa and China's seat in the United Nations.

The Korean nation and people which have been so cruelly
ravaged must not be sacrificed. That is the paramount concern.
Apart from the military area of the problem where the issues
are resolved in the course of combat, the fundamental questions
continue to be political in nature and must find their answer in
the diplomatic sphere.

Within the area of my authority as military commander, how
ever, it should be needless to say I stand ready at any time to
confer in the field with the commander in chief of the enemy
forces in an earnest effort to find any military means whereby
the realization of the political objectives of the United Nations
in Korea, to which no nation may justly take exceptions, might
be accomplished without further bloodshed.

It was a bold and desperate move on MacArthur's part to
force the Red commander to confer directly with him. Cer
tainly it forestalled any half-way measures for appeasement
that might have come out of the United Nations.

The fact that the Tokyo dateline was a day ahead of Wash
ington time meant that this MacArthur statement, dated
Tokyo March 24, was actually received in the capital on
March 213. Newspapers the following morning carried the

509

long dispatch; and the next day, March 24, Washington time,
a directive was hurried off to MacArthur. It carried little more
than a suggestion of the storm that was brewing in the minds
of the President and his two most important advisors, Marshall
and Acheson. The directive read:

To: Commander in Chief, Far East, Tokyo, Japan
From: Joint Chiefs of Staff, personal for MacArthur

The President has directed that your attention be called to
his order as transmitted 6 December 1950. In view of the in
formation given you 20 March 1951 any further statements by
you must be co-ordinated as prescribed in the order of 6 De
cember.

The President has also directed that in the event Communist
military leaders request an armistice in the field, you imme
diately report that fact to the JCS for instructions.

It was apparent to the three men who were most concerned
with bending MacArthur to their way of thinking that a crisis
was near at hand. Neither of the two senior advisors to the
President in this matter seemed interested in any effort to
temper the President's growing personal bitterness against
MacArthur.

In a way, history was repeating itself. MacArthur had long
believed that Marshall, as the senior army advisor to Presi
dent Roosevelt at Yalta, evaded his mandatory responsibilities
when he had not tried to stop the President from signing the
secret clauses of the Yalta Agreement. In MacArthur's eyes,
the duty and responsibility that confronted Marshall now,
six and a half years later, was very much the same; Marshall,
he felt, should warn President Truman that a Korean stale
mate would almost inevitably mean the eventual conquest of
all Korea by the Chinese Communists backed by Russia even
if it took several years of intrigue and cruel intimidation to
bring it about.

During his years in Japan MacArthur had had considerable
experience with Acheson and various fellow-traveller elements
within the State Department, and he had no illusions where
the Secretary stood regarding British and Indian interests in
Korea, Formosa and Red China. The General knew how little
510

consideration he could expect from any of the three men wha
were dictating the foreign and military policies of America in
collaboration with their Socialist friends in the United Nations
and under the consistent pressures of Red spy cells and their
growing influence. But he could hardly have anticipated the
sudden startling turn of events.

On the afternoon of April 5 Joseph Martin, Minority Leader
of the House, interrupted a speech he was making on Korea
by reading a letter he had received from MacArthur a few
days before. It had been written in answer to the following
note from Martin:

Office of the Minority Leader,
House of Representatives,
Washington, D. €., March 8, 1951
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur
Commander in Chief, Far Eastern Command

My dear General: In the current discussions on foreign policy
and overall strategy many of us have been distressed that, al
though the European aspects have been heavily emphasized, we
have been without the views of yourself as Commander in Chief
of the Far Eastern Command.

I think it is imperative to the security of our Nation and for
the safety of the world that policies of the United States embrace
the broadest possible strategy and that in our earnest desire to
protect Europe we not weaken our position in Asia.

Enclosed is a copy of an address I delivered in Brooklyn, N. Y.,
February 12, stressing this vital point and suggesting that the
forces of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek on Formosa might be
employed in the opening of a second Asiatic front to relieve the
pressure on our forces in Korea.

I have since repeated the essence of this thesis in other speeches,
and intend to do so again on March 21, when I will be on a
radio hook-up.

I would deem it a great help if I could have your views on
this point, either on a confidential basis or otherwise. Your ad
mirers are legion, and the respect you command is enormous.
May success be yours in the gigantic undertaking which you
direct.

Sincerely yours,

Joseph W. Martin, Jr.
511

MacArthur's answer was made in a completely routine man
ner. The General dictated it the day before receiving the mes
sage from the Joint Chiefs of Staff informing him that the
President was shortly to release the statement that the U. N.
was now prepared to discuss a settlement in Korea. To Mac-
Arthur his answer to the Martin letter was merely one of scores
of replies he regularly sent to friends and admirers in the
States. It read:

General Headquarters,

Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers,
Tokyo, Japan, March 20, 1951
Hon. Joseph W. Martin, Jr.
House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

Dear Congressman Martin: I am most grateful for your note
of the 8th forwarding me a copy of your address of February 12.
The latter I have read with much interest, and find that with
the passage of years you have certainly lost none of your old-time
punch.

My views and recommendations with respect to the situation
created by Red China's entry into the war against us in Korea
have been submitted to Washington in most complete detail.
Generally these views are well known and clearly understood, as
they follow the conventional pattern of meeting force with maxi
mum counter-force, as we have never failed to do in the past.
Your view with respect to the utilization of the Chinese forces
on Formosa is in conflict with neither logic nor this tradition.

It seems strangely difficult for some to realize that here in Asia
is where the Communist conspirators have elected to make their
play for global conquest, and that we have joined the issue thus
raised on the battlefield; that here we fight Europe's war with
arms while the diplomats there still fight it with words; that if
we lose the war to communism in Asia the fall of Europe is in
evitable, win it and Europe most probably would avoid war and
yet preserve freedom. As you pointed out, we must win. There
is no substitute for victory.

With renewed thanks and expressions of most cordial regard
I am,

Faithfully yours,

Douglas Mac Arthur
512

MacArthur had placed no restrictions on the use of the
letter, and probably even if Martin had cabled for permission
to use it on the floor of the House, the General would not
have raised the slightest objection. It concerned the subject
nearest his heart. It had to do with his duty to his country now
faced with grave peril.

Within a few minutes after the Minority Leader read Mac-
Arthur's communication on the floor of the House on that mid-
afternoon of April 5, word of Martin's political use of the
letter reached the White House. Truman was vociferously an
noyed. It was too good an opportunity to get rid of MacArthur
for his enemies to miss.

The following noon, immediately after the regular Cabinet
meeting, the President called in Secretary of State Acheson,
Secretary of Defense Marshall, Special Advisor Harriman and
General Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. For
an hour there was a general discussion covering the possibility
of permitting MacArthur to continue in authority until after a
Japanese treaty had been negotiated. The four advisors were
asked to study the situation and to gather again on Saturday
morning at the White House offices.

At this Saturday meeting there was a discussion regarding
splitting MacArthur's commands so that Ridgway could be
made Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations Forces in
Korea and MacArthur's authority would be limited to his
single status of Supreme Commander in Japan. The President
asked his advisors to ponder the problems over the week end,
and Marshall was specifically instructed to obtain the views of
the Chiefs of Staff. This was done on Sunday afternoon.

At the Monday morning meeting General Bradley informed
the President that the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously agreed
that MacArthur must go. On Tuesday, April 10, there was a
further meeting with Truman at 3 o'clock, at which various
drafts of the President's orders were discussed. Arrangements
were made to have both MacArthur and Ridgway formally

513

notified at the same time. Secretary of War Pace was the mes
senger chosen to inform MacArthur of his immediate relief,
and General John E. Hull, of the General Staff, was to carry
the word to Ridgway that he was to replace MacArthur. Both
envoys were then in Korea on an inspection trip.

There was frantic scurrying about during this day of April
10, when a report reached the White House that apparently
there had been a leak in the secret plan. Walter Trohan, ag
gressive head of the Washington Bureau of the Chicago
Tribune, had telephoned the Pentagon requesting clarification
of the report from Japan concerning a Tokyo tip that news of
an important resignation was scheduled for the following
afternoon, Tokyo time. It seems quite logical that the White
House interpreted this to mean that MacArthur, although un
aware of his fate but disgusted with the support he was re
ceiving, might be planning to ask for sudden retirement be
fore the secret orders for his relief would reach him.

After considerable discussion and several changes in the
plans, because of the uncertainty of communications with Sec
retary of War Pace, it was finally decided to call in the
regular White House correspondents at 1:30 in the morn
ing of April 11, and give them the full directive, at the exact
moment messages would be delivered to both MacArthur and
Ridgway. Not since correspondents had been summoned to
receive the carefully guarded news of the death of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, had there been such
speculation and uncertainty as to the nature of the announce
ment that would be forthcoming.

To MacArthur in Tokyo there was no intimation of what
was coming.

The General and Jean were finishing a lengthy lunch with
a visiting Senator at the Embassy, when Colonel Sidney Huff
phoned from his own apartment within the walled compound
and left word for Jean to call him the moment she was free.

As soon as the MacArthurs reached their private quarters
she called Huff. He explained he had been tipped off by an
514

American radio correspondent that there was something im
portant regarding the President and the General that would
be on the 3 o'clock broadcast. Then Huff blurted out the bad
news.

He had just tuned in and at the very end of the newscast
had come the flash announcement that the General had been
relieved of all his commands. The news had broken only a
few moments before Jean's return call had reached him.

It seemed incredible to the MacArthurs that they had re
ceived no advance hint of the unaccountable order.

A little later a small brown envelope was delivered by the
Signal Corps message center. Colonel Huff immediately took
the envelope to the door of the General's bedroom, where
Jean was waiting. Huff felt that it was almost as if he were
delivering a death sentence.

The General opened the envelope and took out the
enclosed sheets. Swiftly his eyes raced through the messages
that were clipped to the flimsy, recording the formal statement
of their reception at the Signal Corps center. They read:

Message Relieving General MacArthur of Command,
April IQ, 1951

I deeply regret that it becomes my duty as President and Com
mander in Chief of the United States military forces to replace
you as Supreme Commander, Allied Powers; Commander in
Chief, United Nations Command; Commander in Chief, Far
East; and Commanding General, U. S. Army, Far East.

You will turn over your commands, effective at once, to Lt.
Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway. You are authorized to have issued
such orders as are necessary to complete desired travel to such
place as you select.

My reasons for your replacement will be made public con
currently with the delivery to you of the foregoing order, and
are contained in the next following message.

Statement of 56te President Relative to the Relief of
General MacArthur^ Aprif\o, 1951

With deep regret I have concluded that General of the Army
Douglas MacArthur is unable to give his whole-hearted support
to the policies of the United States Government and of the United
Nations in matters pertaining to his official duties. In view of

515

the specific responsibilities imposed upon me by the Constitution
of the United States and the added responsibility which has been
entrusted to me by the United Nations, I have decided that I
must make a change of command in the Far East. I have, there
fore, relieved General MacArthur of his commands and have
designated Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway as his successor.

Full and vigorous debate on matters of national policy is a
vital element in the constitutional system of our free democracy.
It is fundamental, however, that military commanders must be
governed by the policies and directives issued to them in the
manner provided by our laws and Constitution. In time of crisis,
this consideration is particularly compelling.

General MacArthur 's place in history as one of our greatest
commanders is fully established. The nation owes him a debt
of gratitude for the distinguished and exceptional service which
he has rendered his country in posts of great responsibility. For
that reason I repeat my regret at the necessity for the action I
feel compelled to take in his case.

So it was that the General met his fate.

24
OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE . . .

To certain men in Washington, in Lake Success and in
Moscow, London and Delhi the announcement must have
come as most welcome and pleasant news. From 10 Downing
Street to the Kremlin, and to the U. N. Assembly cocktail
lounges, with their nests of intrigue, there was great rejoicing
that the American soldier, who for so long had blocked one
sinister scheme after another, was now out of the way.

It was a great day for the Reds and Internationalists and
the faint-hearted American leaders. No longer would they be
516

plagued by the soldier who opposed their brazen attempts to
neutralize and emasculate American interests and betray
American honor and courage. No longer would this old war
rior, almost single-handed, attempt to block the surrender of
the State Department, the Pentagon and the White House to
a U. N. Security Council dominated by One-Worlders, Social
ists and Communists and by nations more interested in trade
with Russia and Red China than with the preservation of a
free world.

No longer would this stalwart be able to hold out against
the ever-growing government by fear, by the gigantic bluff of
Russia and the Red Chinese threats and intimidations.

For a full two decades MacArthur had stood against the
gradual surrender of the constitutional government to an im
ported creeping socialism and, for the last 10 years, to the
spell cast by such foreign leaders as Churchill and Stalin,
Attlee and Nehru. He had never given way to the secret
pressures and the influences of the Red conspiracy and its cor
ruption of the once free and unique American mind. He had
watched with horror how the victory won at such cost in
Europe and the Pacific had been lost by the ineptness and
ignorance and lack of foresight of American leaders. He had
been horrified at the treachery of American Pinks and Reds
and their dupes, enmeshed in the web of betrayal within the
high offices of the U. S. government; and how Nationalist
China had actually been destroyed as a result of these influences.

With infinite courage and genius he had helped save South
Korea from certain disaster, and he had led his victorious
armies to the high cliffs of the Yalu. Only when a vicious new
war broke and a hundred thousand hidden Red Chinese sud
denly appeared from their caves and snow-camouflaged forests
and attacked, had he felt the utter frustration of not being
permitted to unwrap his air and turn defeat into a certain
victory that might well have settled the whole Asiatic threat
for a score of years to come.

And he was to live to see his able successors denied the same
chance to win — and the icy hand of Russian fear and British
trade demands closing tightly around the timid hearts of cer
tain American leaders. Never for a day were either Generals

517

Ridgway, Van Fleet, or Clark permitted to win the Korean
war by making full and fearless use of the weapons each had
at hand. The psychosis of fear of Russia and the betrayal of
American ideals before the pressure of her questionable Allies
were to continue with the mockery of the surrender at
Panmunjon and the disgraceful armed peace that followed,
leading straight on into the vast problems of future local wars in
the distant Pacific.

So it was that the rejoicing among little Americans and their
foreign tutors was great that day in mid- April 1951. The brave
sentinel had been stabbed in the back. Those who bent their
knees to the Red Bear finally had seen their plots against this
fearless soldier succeed.

Douglas MacArthur, the uncompromising American, had
been destroyed.

Or so they thought.

Early in Tokyo on the morning following the orders for the
General's relief, the flood of friendly messages from the United
States began to pour in on MacArthur. He drew even tighter
the veil of privacy that had surrounded him during his five
and a half years in Tokyo. Trans-Pacific phone calls and cables
were handled by aides, for, as in every other great crisis of his
life, he wanted to make his decisions alone and without pres
sure from outside sources. This time, of course, he had the wise
and loyal co-operation of Jean MacArthur.

A message relayed from Mr. Herbert Hoover that broke
through the barricade advised MacArthur to "fly home as
quickly as possible, before Truman and Marshall and their
crowd of propagandists can smear you." The suggestion was
added that MacArthur would be asked to speak before a joint
meeting of Congress and would be received with a public
ovation. But the important thing was to come home as quickly
as possible before the public could be poisoned against him.
He must not wait for a ship but return by plane.

MacArthur agreed that the suggestion was sound, and added
518

that he desired the ex-President to understand one thing; he
wanted Mr. Hoover to be his sole advisor. This Mr. Hoover
readily agreed to do.

Shortly an official invitation was cabled to the General ask
ing him to address a meeting of the two Houses of Congress.
MacArthur immediately expedited arrangements for his re
turn. The date of April 19 was agreed on for his Congressional
address. This would mean that his plane would have to leave
Tokyo early on the fifth day after the original news of his
dismissal had been phoned to him.

He made two short visits to his office to clear his desk and to
arrange for shipping his personal belongings. Then he shut
tight the doors to all friends and callers. In what spare mo
ments he had he worked on his address to be delivered before
Congress. Swiftly came the hour when the little party must
start on the journey to the airport, where he was to make his
departure at 7 in the morning.

All during the previous afternoon and night the narrow,
winding roads that led to the airfield were filling up with
thousands of Japanese people. They came from the tiny farms
and shops and villages and from the great centers of Tokyo
and Yokohama and neighboring cities. They made the jour
ney on foot and bicycle and by bus and car and train, and
they stood long hours in order to show their respect and affec
tion for the great American who was now leaving them.

It was as if they were saying good-bye to a trusted friend
who in some mystical way had given them a new sense of their
own personal dignity and true freedom and hope. It was not a
happy, cheering crowd but rather a stunned and bewildered
outpouring of brave people, hardened to adversity and heart
break. They lined almost every foot of the 1 5-mile route of the
MacArthur party to the airport.

The brief farewell ceremony within the roped-off space that
led to the landing ramp of the Bataan was of a quiet intensity
of mood that reflected the true emotions of the high Japanese
dignitaries, the members of the diplomatic corps and the old
army friends who had gathered there.

The General, Jean and Arthur finally walked up the ramp

519

and while the army band played Auld Lang Syne, they turned
and waved at the crowd. The door closed and a moment later
the great ship rolled away.

At Honolulu, when MacArthur saw the vast crowd gathered
at the airport, he remarked that he hoped they were not cheer
ing because they felt sorry for him.

He was still completely unprepared for what was to come.
The tragic conclusion of a half century of service had shocked
him beyond words. In his own sensitive mind to be thus bru
tally and summarily relieved of all his commands could pro
duce no reaction save a sense of injustice at the disgrace.

Before leaving Tokyo he had agreed to a public reception
in San Francisco, and one at the Washington Monument, fol
lowing his speech before Congress, and to a public appearance
in New York a day or two later. He told Lt. Colonel Storey,
his personal pilot, to draw up the time schedule so that they
could slip into San Francisco after dark and get a good night's
rest before the big reception the next day.

The wildly cheering, emotional crowd that welcomed Mac-
Arthur in San Francisco was his first intimation of the intensity
of devotion and sympathy felt for him by all America. He still
did not fully understand this patent evidence of the resent
ment of millions at his treatment by Washington. He still
moved as one in a trance.

On April 19, eight days after his dismissal in Tokyo, the Gen
eral made his historic address before a joint meeting of the
Congress. In millions of homes, in offices and machine shops,
in every nook and corner of the vast land, the people of Amer
ica listened to his words with unconcealed emotion.

It is possible that at no previous moment in American
history had there been such a universal outpouring of the
human heart. Even his opening words seemed to ring with the
peculiar quality of a great spirit enunciating what apparently
would be his farewell:

I stand on this rostrum with a sense of deep humility and great
pride — humility in the wake of those great American architects
520

of our history who have stood here before me, pride in the
reflection that this forum of legislative debate represents human
liberty in the purest form yet devised.

Here are centered the hopes and aspirations and faith of the
entire human race. I do not stand here as advocate for any par
tisan cause, for the issues are fundamental and reach quite be
yond the realm of partisan consideration. They must be resolved
on the highest plane of national interest if our course is to prove
sound and our future protected. . . .

I address you with neither rancor nor bitterness in the fading
twilight of life with but one purpose in mind: to serve my
country.

A whole nation was gripped by the power and authority of
his words and by the sheer beauty and magnificence of this
master orator's Voice. With majestic sincerity he approached
the peroration:

In war there is no substitute for victory. There are some who,
for varying reasons, would appease Red China. They are blind
to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable
emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war.
It points to no single instance where this end has justified the
means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace.
Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater
demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other
alternative.

Why, my soldiers asked of me, surrender military advantages
to an enemy in the field? I could not answer.

It was the question an entire nation was asking. The very
fact that there was no answer shook the country to its inner
soul. The strange pent-up anger involved and the endless pity
and anguish of frustration brought tears to millions of citizens
everywhere.

Then the mood swung from the grave injustice that had
been done a brave and uncompromising fellow countryman,
to a touching picture of an old soldier calmly facing the in
evitable. His final words left their indelible imprint:

^ I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the
army even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment
of all my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over

521

many times since I took the oath on the Plain at West Point,
and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished. But I still
remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads
of that day which proclaimed most proudly that —

"Old soldiers never die; they just fade away/' And like the
old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military service and
just fade away — an old soldier who had tried to do his duty as
God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.

It was a proud moment for Douglas MacArthur.

His eyes had seen the glory of a grateful and bewildered
nation laying its heartfelt thanks at his feet.

Time was to bring him the satisfaction of knowing that his
country ultimately recognized that in his supreme struggle in
the Pacific he had been right and those who opposed him — and
finally punished him — had been wrong.

Millions of his countrymen still hoped he would be recalled
to the service of his country. But no matter what the future
might bring, to those millions he would forever remain the old
soldier who would never die— or fade away.

INDEX

Abbot, Stephen, 30

Acheson, Dean, 380, 392, 393, 411, 412,
414, 415, 416, 422, 423, 425, 443, 467,

477> 497> 499» 5<>5> 5°6> 5l°> 5*3
Admiralty Islands, 317, 318, 319, 326
Aguinaldo, General Emilio, 17, 28, 29,

113,250

Ah Cheu, 267, 329
Aitape, 307, 326
Akin, Spencer B., 266, 269
Alice Springs, 271
Allied Council for Japan, 418-419
Almond, Edward M,, 468, 473, 479, 484,

487, 493, 495
Amerasia case, 415
Anhui (cargo ship), 236
Annapolis, see United States Naval

Academy

Antung, Manchuria, 478
Aparri, 229
Army fr Navy Journal, 140-141, 159,

374
Arnold, H. H., 200, 212, 213, 214, 316,

338, 354> 383* S&t' 402
Associated Press, 63, 124, 190, 417
Atcheson, George, 415, 416, 427-428
Atlantic Pact, 206, 209
Atomic bombs, 396, 398, 476, 497
Atsugi, 400, 401, 402, 403
Attlee, Clement, 462, 497, 517
Australia, 235, 244, 245, 254, 256, 257,

258, 260, 270-271, 275-297, 319, 332,

357» 367' MacArthur's assignment to,

259-272, 275-296, 297, 333
Australian Broadcasting Company, 275-

276

Baguio, 224

Baillie, Hugh, 489

Baker, Newton D., 60-61, 62, 64, 70, 98,

106, 107, 205
Balahap, Jose", 409
Balikpapan, 396
Ball, Captain William G., 58
Ballantine, Joseph, 414
Barbey, Daniel E., 303, 304, 326, 359
B arbour, Irwin, 63
Barrett, Charles J., 106

Bataan, 137, 236, 239-268, 270, 272, 295,
308, 349> 35& 361, 363. 366, 367* 368,
369, 405, 438

Bataan (plane), 331, 401, 402, 403, 452,

473' 478> 5*9

Batangas, 366, 369, 370

Batchelor Field, 271, 280

Bates, J. C., 37

Beebe, Lewis C., 260

Belcher, Aurelia, see MacArthur, Mrs.
Arthur (grandmother)

Bell, J. Franklin, 17, 38, 40, 42, 98, 128

Belvoir, Fort, 38

Bennett, E. R., 68

Benning, Fort, 16 1

Berle, Adolf, 414

Bevan, Aneurin, 417

Beveridge, Albert J., $5, 176, 356> 441

Biak Island, 328, 330

Bilibid prison, 363, 570, 378

Bingham, Hiram, 126, 159

Bismarck Sea, Battle of the, 302

Bizerte, 298

Blake, Edmund M., 27

Blarney, Thomas A., 290

Bliss, Tasker H., 59, 61, 64

Boeckel, R. M., 63

Bois de la Sonnard, 84

Boise (cruiser), 385, 38 .

Bonesteel, Charles, 108

"Bonus March," 136, 141-147

Booz, Oscar Lyle, 20

Borneo, 254, 384, 396

Bougainville, 284, 296, 306

Boxer uprising, 67

Bradley, Omar, 103, 443, 474> 48°* 5*3

Brain Trusters, 174

Breckenridge, Henry, 59, 60

Brereton, Lewis Hv 2ij-zi5, 224, 225,
226, 228

Brett, George H., 290

Bridges, Styles, 444

Brigham, W. E., 63

Brisbane Line, 276, 296

Brooks, Louise Cromwell, see Mac-
Arthur, Mrs. Louise

Brooks, Walter D., Jr . 110

Browder, Earf . 146

523

Brown, L. Ames, 63

Brown, Lewellyn, 63

Brown, Preston, 128

Brown, Robert A., 67, 83

Brunei Bay, 384, 385, 396

Buckner, Simon Bolivar, Jr., 103, 387

Buka Island, 284

Bulkeley, John Duncan, 268, 269, 270

Buna, 288, 290, 291, 292, 294, 295, 296,

301, 328, 356, 384, 438
Bunker, Larry, 474
Bunker, Paul, 268
Burma, 298, 335, 354
Burma Road, 310
Burnett, Cadet Captain Charles, 27
Butler, Major Smedley D., 52
Byers, Clovis, 294
Byrd, Harry F., 503
Byrnes, James F., 141, 394, 415, 417, 418

Cabanatuan, 363, 365

Cadman, S. Parkes, 134

Cagayan, 270

Cairo Conference, 312, 313, 354, 445

Camp Meade, Maryland, 83

Camp Mills, Long Island, 68, 72

Cape Engano, 345

Capper, Arthur, 312

Caraballo mountains, 360, 361, 388-389

Carney, "Mick," 315

Caroline Islands, 315

Casablanca Conference, 298, 313

Casey, Hugh J., 220, 230, 239, 266, 287

Casey, Richard, 245, 256

Castro (houseboy), 436

Cavite, 229, 241

Cebu, 260, 264, 350, 359, 383

Celebes, 254

Central Intelligence Agency, 467

Chamberlain, Stephen J., 302, 315, 325,

341, 396, 438

Champagne, the, 76-79, 83
Chandler, A. B. (Happy), 308, 309, 310,

412

Charmes, France, 74
Chase, William C., 318, 365
Chiang Kai-shek, 175, 198, 199, 312, 354,

355» 38o, 38i, 394> 414. 415. 423-424>

425, 427, 432, 441, 445, 448, 458, 459,

460, 506, 511

Chiang Kai-shek, Madame, 459
Chicago Tribune, 63, 67, 87, 311, 514
China, Communists gain control of,

445; U. S. policy toward, 423-427,

440-441

Chongjin, Korea, 478, 481
Chosan, 479
Choshin reservoir, 478, 479, 481, 484,

493

Chou En-lai, 472

Christie, Ralph W., 264

Church, John H., 453

Churchill, Winston S,, Atlantic confer
ence, 206, 209; attitude toward allied

524

invasion across the English channel,
298; attitude toward Germany, 301;
attitude toward Japanese aggression,
244-246, 300, 307, 309; attitude to
ward war against Japan, 300, 399;
Cairo conference, 312, 354; Casa
blanca conference, 298; disapproval
of returning Australian divisions in
Middle East home, 276; influence of,
202-203, 217, 237, 244, 461-462, 517;
MacArthur praised by Wavell in
cable to, 259; Potsdam conference,
393; Quebec conference, 300, 308, 309,
340; quoted by MacArthur, 249;
Tehran conference, 313; Yalta agree
ment, 355-356, 379-381

Chynoweth, Bradford G., 260, 264, 270

Civil War, 4-6, 8, 156

Civilian Conservation Corps, 149-150,
151, 153, 161, 165-166

Clapper, Raymond, 317

Clark, Mark, 518

Clark Field, 213, 220, 224-225, 226, 227,
360, 362

Clarke, Alfred J., 63

Clinton, Fort, 108

Coast Farmer (cargo ship), 236

Cocheu, George, 31, 116

Collins, J. Lawton, 453, 466, 467, 480

Collins, Ross, 140, 141, 147, 148

Columbus, New Mexico, 61

Conn, E. L., 63

Conner, Fox, 71, 91, 128, 170

Connor, Frank W., 63

Connor, Haskett L., Jr., 366

Cooper, Merian C., 303, 384

Coral Sea, Battle of the, 282, 296, 298

Corbin, Henry Clark, 16

Cordier, Constant, 51, 54, 57

Corey, Herbert, 71

Corregidor, 123, 137, 219, 221, 222, 236,
239-268, 272, 278, 295, 333, 349> 356,
359> 3% 36> 368, 3% 4<>5» 436, 438

C6te de Chatillon, 88-89, 90, 95, 96

Covington (ship), 69

Cox, Creed F., 196

Crab, officer, 384

Craig, Malin, 162, 172-174, 182, 187,
188, 196, 316

Croft, Edward, 162

Cromwell, Oliver, no

Cronyn, Dr. William J., 46

Cullen, Thomas H., 140

Cunningham, Frederick H., 19, 23

Currie, Lauchlin, 414

Curtin, John, 245, 256, 277, 281, 307,

308, 319, 320, 321
Custer, George Armstrong, 7

Daily Worker, 391, 408-409
Dairen, 381

Danford, Robert M., 99, 104-105, 106,
107, 109

Daughters of the American Revolution,

407

Davao, 341, 383
Davies, Joseph E., 467
Davis, "Corky," 71
Davis, Dwight F., 119
Davis, Elmer, 393
Davis, Jefferson, 11
Davis, John Paton, 414
Davis, T. J., 136, 155, 156, 164, 170, 171!,

185

Dean, William F., 453, 454
DeBazelaire, General, 73
Defend America by Aiding the Allies,

203

Degoutte, General, 79
Del Monte Field, 220, 224
Dern, George, 159, 165, 167, 168, 172,

188

Dewey, Thomas E., 311, 324, 333, 444
Dickman, Joseph T., 92
Diller, L. A., 266
Dix, Fort, 104, 105, 106
Dobodura, 292, 294
Dodds, Nugent, 142
Doe, Jens, 326, 385
Doihara, Colonel, 129
Domei, 398

Dona Nati (cargo ship), 236
Donovan, William J., 68, 72-73, 109
Doolittle, James Harold, 383
Doolittle, James Rood, 4
Doolittle raid, 302, 329
Dooman, Eugene H., 392, 393, 414, 415
Dougherty, J. K., 63
Douglas, Lewis, 149
Drum, Hugh A., 91, 107, 127
Duffy, Father, 68
Dulles, John Foster, 194, 450
Dunn, James C., 414
Dutch East Indies, 256, 310, 332, 334,

335> 336, 358
Dutch New Guinea, 303, 317

Early, Stephen I., 63, 160, 194, 204-205,
321

Egbert, Roger, 401

Eichelberger, Robert L., 292, 294, 326,
328, 350, 352, 353, 357, 369, 370, 372,
382-383, 385, 388, 401, 403, 407, 410,

438

Einstein, Albert, 134

Eisenhower, David, 172, 194

Eisenhower, Dwight D., Army Chief of
Staff, 194, 309, 422, 443; background,
170-171; "Bonus Marchers'* (1932),
143; Cairo conference, 313; Casa
blanca conference, 313; consulted by
Marshall, on Philippines defense,
234-235; made a 5-star general, 354;
mentioned as Presidential candidate,

477; Philippines mission, 170, 172,
182, 191-194; relations with Mac-
Arthur, 192-194, 250; special aide to
MacArthur, 156, 170; Supreme Com
mander of NATO, 477, 502, 503;
tirade against, by Truman, 477;
World War II, 298, 310

Eisenhower, Mrs. Dwight D., 172, 194

Ely, Hanson E., 128

Emerson, 467

Emmons, Delos C., 199

Eniwetok, 330

Entezam, Nasrollah, 498

Erickson, Ralph J., 326

Esperanza (German steamer), 49

Eyre, Lincoln, 87

Faircloth, Jean, see MacArthur, Mrs.

Jean

Far Eastern Commission, 418, 430
Federal Economic Agency, 422
Fellers, Bonner, 181, 195, 295, 325, 331,

385, 397, 401, 421
Final Secret of Pearl Harbor, The

(Theobald), 222
Finchhafen, 303, 304, 309
First World War, see World War I
Fish, Hamilton, 311
Fisher, Fred, 29
Fletcher, Frank £.,52
Foch, Ferdinand, 76, 79
Ford, James, 145
Foret de Fere, 80
Formosa, 35, 227, 228, 232, 310, 312,

334» 335> 338, 353- 358, 362, 380, 427*

445, 448-449> 452, 458-465. 5°°> 5<>5>

506, 510, 511, 512
Forrestal, James V., 392, 393
Forts, see under names of forts
42nd Infantry Division, U. S. Army,

see Rainbow Division
Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 134
Foulois, Benjamin D., 159, 160
Fox, Albert W., 63
Francisco, General, 193
Frankfurter, Felix, 380
Funston, Arthur MacArthur, 28, 29
Funs ton, Frederick, 17, 18, 28-29, 49,

5<>> 51' 57» 58

Garner, John N., 141, 180

Garrison, Lindley M., 50, 60

Gavin, George N., 63

Geiger, Roy, 387

George, Harold H., 226, 266, 287

George VI, King, 282

Geronimo, 318

Ghormley, Robert L., 199, 286, 287

Gibbon, John, 6

Gilbert Islands, 330

525

Gltlow, Benjamin, 146

Gloucester, New Britain, 304

Gona, 288, 290, 291, 294, 295, 296, 301,

356, 384

Goodenough Island, 313, 314
Gouraud, Henri J. E., 76
Grant, Mrs. Frederick Dent, 26
Grant, U. S., 5, 13, 26
Grant, U. S., Ill, 26-27, 32, 34
Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, 355
Greene, Woodall, 466
Grew, Joseph C., 198, 392, 393, 414, 415,

427

Griswold's XIV Corps, 360
Groat, Carl D., 63
Grunert, George, 203-204
Guadalcanal, 286, 287, 296, 297, 306
Guam, 331
Guimba, 364

Hacienda Lucita, 362
Haig, Douglas, 148
Hall, Charles P., 363, 367
Halmahera, 338, 339
Halsey, William F., 287, 296, 297, 303,
306, 315, 338, 340, 342, 343, 344, 345,

347' 348, 350, 353' 358, 359' 375
Hamhung, Korea, 494
Han river, 452, 457
Hansa Bay, 325
Harding, Warren G., 107
Hardy, Mary Pinkney, see MacArthur,

Mary
Hardy, Thomas Asbury (grandfather),

a

Harriman, Averell, 462, 465-466, 474,
476, 513

Hart, Thomas C., 216, 218, 222, 229,
240, 241, 242

Harvey, T. Holman, 63

Hay, John, 35, 441

Hill 212, 80

Hill 242, 87, 88

Hill 288, 87

Hills, Lawrence, 63

Hindenburg Line, 85, 90

Hines, Philip A., 185

Hirohito, Emperor, 395, 408, 420-421

Hiroshima, 396

Hiss, Alger, 300, 380, 414, 431

Hitler, Adolf, 155, 194, 197, 199, 202,
204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 216, 234, 235,
237> 244, 245, 249, 261, 298, 300, 354,

355» 379

Hodge, John R., 445, 446
Hojo, Lt. General, 386
Hollandia, 323, 324, 325-328, 330, 340,

34L 39<5

Homma, Masaharu, 263
Hong Kong, 228
Honshu, 396

526

Hood, Edwin M., 63

Hoover, Herbert, 124, 125, 126, 127,

128, 129, 137, 138, 142-147, 201, 375,

441, 518-519
Hopkins, Harry, 158, 163, 203, 206,

208, 298, 301, 313, 380, 394
Hornbeck, Stanley, 414
Hough, Ben, 68
House on the Wall, The, 114
Howard, Samuel L., 242
Howe, Fred, 188-189
Huff, Sidney L., 240, 266, 436, 514-515
Hughes, Charles Evans, 441
Hull, Cordell, 216, 218, 219, 299, 414
Hull, John E., 514
Humbolt Bay, 325
Hungnam, Korea, 495, 496, 500
Hunt, Harry B., 63
Hurley, Patrick J., 126-128, 142-143,

144, 146, 235, 259, 415, 416, 423, 427
Hutchison, officer, 384
Hutter, Howard J., 115, 170, 179, 185,

194, 196
Hyesanjin, Korea, 493

Ickes, Harold, 158

Imus, 370

Inchon, Korea, 457, 462, 466, 468-471,

473> 479» 48o, 501, 502
Indo-China, 207, 208, 217, 228, 232, 335
Industrial War College, 171
Institute of Pacific Relations, 424
lo Shima, 400
Iwo Jima, 338, 374, 386

Jackson Post, 7

Jamieson, A. N., 63

Japan, post-war problems, 339-340;
surrender of, 394-395* 397~399> 445»*
U. S. occupation, 402, 407-450

Jebb, Sir Gladwyn, 481

Johnson, Hugh, 173-174

Johnson, J. Munroe, 250
ohnson, Louis A., 452, 463, 466, 467,
480

Johnson, Nelson T., 418
Johnston, William H., 59
folo, 385

[ones, General, 243
[ones, George Madison, 369
fudson, W. V., 40-41

Kaiser Wilhelm der Grossef 69

Kapa Kapa trail, 292

Kasserine Pass, 298

Keene, Roy, 161-162

Kelly, William, 68

Kenney, George C., 289, 290, 291, 292,
301, 302, 303, 306, 314, 315, 316, 317,
319, 325, 326, 328, 338, 340, 341, 342,
348, 35<>, 357» 358, 3^1, 368, 375, 376,
383* 384* 385* 395» 396> 402, 4<>3> 438

Kenney, Mrs. Mary E., 443

Kimmel, Husband E., 217, 222

Kimpo airfield, 469, 473, 501

King, Charles, 45, 46, 318

King, Edward J., 262

King, Ernest J., 238, 280-281, 282, 284,
285, 286, 306, 313, 315, 316, 332, 336,
338, 354, 375' 380, 386, 399' 422

Kinkaid, Thomas C., 315, 317, 326,

342-343» 344» 345* 350, 357» 438
Knox, Frank, 201, 216, 217
Kokoda Pass, 288, 290, 291, 292
Konoye, Prince, 215, 420
Korea, 36, 37, 38, 301, 394, 396, 414,

415, 426, 431, 432, 445-5^
Kriemhilde Stellung, 85, 89, 90
Krueger, Walter, 234, 313, 326, 348, 350,

352, 357' 36°' 361, 362, 388, 389, 438
Kuriles, 381

Kurita, Admiral, 344-345
Kurusu, Saburo, 215-216
Kyushu, 386, 387, 391, 394, 396

Lae, 282, 284, 286, 301, 302, 303, 304,

3°9' 328

Laguna de Bay, 372, 373
Lamon Bay, 230
Lattimore, Owen, 393, 414, 415, 416,

424, 447-448
Lawton, Henry, 318
Leach, George E., 68
Leahy, W. D., 313, 316, 333, 335, 337,

354, 380, 381
Leavenworth, Fort, 12, 41, 42-45, 47,

48, 7*' 171

Lee, John C. H., 42-43
Lee, Robert E., 11, 32
Legaspi, 229, 230, 389
Lehrbas, Larry, 208, 318, 331
Lend-lease, 206, 211, 298
Lenihan, Michael J., 67
Leviathan (ship), 136
Levin, Emmanuel, 145
Lewis, Clyde A., 462
Lexington (carrier), 282
Leyte, 264, 331, 335, 340, 341, 342-343*

347, 348-35 1, 356, 358, 359, 372, 389,

390, 396, 468

Liggett, Hunter, 91, 92, 94
Limay, 367

Lincoln, Abraham, 4, 323
Lingayen, 360, 362, 363, 396
Lingayen Gulf, 224, 229-230, 335, 353,

358, 359' 364> 468
Lobit, William E., 365
Lochridge, P. D., 59
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 441
Los Alamos, New Mexico, 396
Los Bafios, 372
Los Negros, 317-318
Lucas, Scott, 162

Luzon, 334, 335, 336, 337, 341, 342» 345'
35<>» 352» 353» 357' 358-359' 366» 369»
379> 382, 386, 388-389, 39°' 436, 45<>

Macabebe Scouts, 28

MacArthur, Arthur (brother), 7, 8-9,

11, 12, 13, 30, 31, 47, 99, 115, 195
MacArthur, Arthur (father), 4-19, 25,

27-3 i. 33* 34' 35-40' 43, 44-46, 48,

61, 67, 68, 69, 73, 75, 88, 98, 112, 113,
117, 124, 128, 130, 156, 180, 195, 240,
318, 434, 435, 436

MacArthur, Arthur (grandfather), 4,

13-14, 117, 195

MacArthur, Arthur (nephew), 195
MacArthur, Arthur (son), 195-196, 204,

250, 253, 254, 257, 267, 269-270, 408,

433' 435' 5*9

MacArthur, Mrs. Arthur (grand
mother), 13

MacArthur, Douglas, appointed Su
preme Allied Commander, 399; Army
Chief of Staff, 116, 126-130, 133-174.
178, 182, 433, 437, 439; Australian
assignment, 259-272, 275-296, 297,
333; birthday, 9; birthplace, 9; "Bonus
Marchers" (1932), 141-147; Briga
dier General, 163; brother's death,
115, 195; childhood, 3-4, 6, 11, 12,
112; Churchill quoted by, 249;
Civilian Conservation Corps, 149-
150, 151, 165-166; command of 3rd
Corps Area in Baltimore, 116-117;
Commanding General, U. S. Army
Forces in the Far East, 209-272;
Communists enmity of, 120, 147;
Congressional address, 518-522; Con
gressional Medal of Honor presented
to, 281; court-martial of William
Mitchell, 117-119, 220; Croix de
Guerre presented to, 73; daily rou
tine, 433-434; dedication of memorial
to his mother, 8, 10; Distinguished
Service Cross presented to, 73;
divorce, 124-125; earliest recollec
tions, 4-6; education, 11, 12, 13, 14,
15-17, 18-27, 30-33; Eisenhower spe
cial aide to, 156; engagement, 110-
111; father's death, 45; Formosa
visited by, 458-461; Fort Leaven-
worth assignment, 41-44, 47, 48;
General Staff assignment, 48-49, 60-
64; Grand Cross of the Legion of
Honor presented to, 137; Harriman's
visit with, in Tokyo, 465-466; "I
shall return," 255, 267, 295, 319, 356;
ideas regarding National Guard, 61-

62, 64, 66; illness, 31, 86, 89; Japanese
occupation, 407-450; Japanese sur
render, 399-406; joins Corps of En
gineers, 34; Korean assignment, 448,
451-516; Lieutenant General, 208;

527

made a 5-star general, 354; Major
General, 116, 190; marriage (ist),
112; marriage (2nd), 185-186; mes
sage to the Daughters of the Ameri
can Revolution, 407-408; military
aide to Secretary of War Baker, 61;
Milwaukee Engineering Office assign
ment, 40; mother's death, 115, 180;
Oak Leaf cluster presented to, 167;
"old soldiers never die — they just
fade away," 42, 522; Olympic team
directorship, 121; "On to Tokyo,"
371, 374; Pacifists enmity of, 120;
Pershing's pension defended by, 148;
personality, 122, 178-179, 433, 440;
Philippines assignments, 34, no, in,
112-116, 121-130, 167-209; Philip
pines high commissioner post offered
to, 168-169; physical characteristics,
15, 18, 25, 31; Pittsburgh University
address (June 9, 1932), 135-136;
political ambitions denied, 295, 323-
324, 477; press censor, 61-62, 64, 205;
proposed as Presidential candidate,
311-312, 317, 321-322, 442-445* pub
lic release (March 24, 1951), 508-
510; Quez6n's Military Advisor, 138,
167-209, 439; Rainbow Division
(42nd Infantry Division), 60-98, 136,
156; relations with Eisenhower, 192-
194, 250; relations with Marshall, 42,
160-163, 197, 204, 205, 313-314, 425,
470, 518; relations with Quez6n, 30,
113, 123, 138, 167-169, 182, 210; rela
tions with Roosevelt, 151-152, 153,
157-160, 165, 166-167, 171> 172-174,
183-184, 187-189, 191, 208, 280, 281,
302, 310, 311, 320-321, 331-337* 375*
461; relations with Truman, 442-443,
462-463, 465-466, 470, 474-477* 500*
510, 513-518; relieved of command
by Truman, 118, 513-518; report to
people at time of Japanese surrender,
404-406; retirement from Army, 188-
190, 191, 202, 204, 295; returns to the
Philippines, 348-349; social life, 116-
117, 119, 169, 186, 433; Soldiers and
Sailors Club address (April 6, 1927),
119-120; Southwest Pacific theatre,
278-296, 297, 300, 301-399, 433, 461;
sup erin tendency of State, War and
Navy Building, 49; Supreme Com
mander of Japanese Occupation, 194,
407-450; trip to Australia, 266-272;
Truman's visit with, at Wake Island,
474-477; Vera Cruz assignment, 48-
60; Washington assignment, 47-50,
60; West Point commencement ad
dress (1933), 153-154; West Point
student days, 15-17, 18-27, 3°-33» 35 >
44, 67, 105, 117, 173, 174, 434; West
Point superintendent, 98-112, 114,
528

H5* *55* 329, 433; West Texas Mili
tary Academy days, 14-15, 240; with
his father in Far East, 37-38; World
War I, 60-98

MacArthur, Mrs. Jean (wife), 180, 185,
194, 204, 240, 250, 253, 254, 257, 268,
270, 329, 408, 433-434* 435* 436* 5H-
515, 518, 519

MacArthur, Mrs. Louise (wife), 110-
112, 114, 116, 118, 121, 124-125

MacArthur, Malcolm (brother), 9

MacArthur, Mary (mother), 7-8, 10,
14-15, 18-19, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 33, 40,
44, 45-46, 47, 48, 59, 66, 99, no, 112,
114, 130, 169-170, 179, 180, 240

MacArthur, Mary McCulla (sister-in-
law), 30, 114, 115, 130, 169, 170, 179

MacArthur and the War Against
Japan, 268-271

MacArthur Day, 281-282

MacKenzie, Ranald, 7

MacLeish, Archibald, 393

Madang, 325

Maginot, Andr£, 136

Maine (battleship), 16

Malacanan Palace, 365, 370, 371

Malaya, 228, 254, 310, 335

Manchuria, 35, 36, 38, 126, 129, 137,
139, 151, 156, 301, 312, 341, 355, 386,

394* 396, 397-398' 425* 445* 459* 475»
476, 479, 484, 498-499

Manila, declared an open city, 240,
243; liberation of, 356, 370-371; Mac-
Arthur's return to, 335, 436

Manila Bay, 229, 241, 249, 260, 261-
262, 335, 336, 340, 359, 362, 366, 367,

369* 370* 373
Manila Tribune, 208
Mann, William A., 64, 66, 67, 71
Manus, 317, 318, 319, 326, 396
Mao Tse-tung, 423
March, Peyton C., 17, 18, 36, 98-99,

101, 106, 107

Marco Polo Bridge incident, 198
Marianas, 233, 331, 358, 386
Mariveles, 243, 367, 368
Marne, the, 76, 79, 82
Marquat, William F., 266
Marshall, George C., Army Chief of

Staff, 163, 196, 199-205, 211-212, 214,

2l8, 222, 223, 234-237, 249, 250, 252,

253, 254, 256, 258-261, 264-265, 281,
284, 285, 286, 298, 301, 313, 316, 331,
334* 374-375* 379> 38o> 38** 39°* 392,
393* 394* 422, 423; Brigadier General,
161-163, 19^*" Cairo conference, 313;
Casablanca conference, 299; China
assignment, 423-424; cross-channel
invasion, 309; Fort Leavenworth
days, 41-42; made a 5-star general,
354; Pacific area visited by, 313-314;
Potsdam conference, 398; reduced to

a major on Pershing's staff, 107; rela
tions with MacArthur, 42, 160-163,
197, 204, 205, 313-314, 425^ 47<>> 5*8;
Secretary of National Defense, 467,

47°* 477» 480, 499* 5°°> 5°5> 5°6* 510*
513; Secretary of State, 426, 443, 467;
special aide to Pershing, 160-161;
suggested as running mate for
Roosevelt, 316; Tehran conference,
313; World War I, 71, 91, 92; Yalta
agreement, 398, 467, 510

Marshall, Mrs. George Cv 162

Marshall, Richard, 205, 210, 266, 271,
438

Marshall Islands, 315

Martelino, Pastor, 181

Martin, Bob, 454

Martin, Joseph R., Jr., 511-513

Mascardo, General, 29

Mashbir, Sidney F., 400, 401

Mayer, Fritz, 104

McCain, John S., 350

McCall's Magazine, 145, 146

McCarran, Pat, 431

McCarthy, Joseph R., 431

McCloy, John J., 393

McCook, Alexander McDowell, 12

McCormick, Robert R., 311

McCoy, Frank, 418

McCulla, Mary, see MacArthur, Mrs.
Arthur, Jr.

Mclntyre, Marvin, 160

Mclntyre, Ross, 183, 184, 316

McKee, O., Jr., 63

McKinley, Fort, 114, 116, 370, 373

McKinley, William, 20, 28, 441

McLenegan, Professor, 17

McMicking, Joseph, 266

McMorris, Charles H., 315

McNutt, Paul V., 183, 185, 187

Melbourne Herald, 245

Menoher, Charles T., 71, 79, 83, 95, 96-

97

Mercy Farm, 80
Merritt, Wesley, 7, 16, 17
Metz, 84

Meuse-Argonne, 85
Midway, 285, 298
Miles, Perry L., 143
Miles, Peter, 372
Miller, A. L., 321-324
Mills, Fort, 253
Milne-Bay, 284, 287, 290, 291, 295, 296,

3*7
Mindanao, 260, 261, 263, 266, 267,

270, 310, 334, 335, 337, 338> 339» 34°*

342, 350, 383, 385, 438
Mindoro, 353, 358, 368, 369
Mission Ridge, 4, 5, 46
Missouri, U.S.S., 404, 407, 412, 428
Mitchell, William (Billy), 18, 117-119,

220

Mitchell, Mrs. William (Billy), 118

Mitscher, Marc A., 330

Moffett, L. W., 63

Molotov, Viacheslav, 417

Moluccas, 339

Montfaucon, 85

Montgomery, Bernard L., 298

Moore, George F., 260

Morehouse, Charles H., 266

Morgenthau, Henry, Jr., 200, 299

Moro War, 385

Morotai, 338, 339, 341, 347, 396

Morton, Lewis, 227

Moultrie, Fort, 161

Mountbatten, Lord Louis, 309, 332,

336» 354

Mudge, Verne, 364, 365, 366
Mueller, Paul John, 438
Mukden incident, 137
Munsan, Korea, 504, 506
Murphy, Frank, 168, 169, 183, 184
Murphy, Grayson M. P., 67
Musashi, 343, 344
Myer, Fort, 130, 144, 152, 169

NATO see North Atlantic Treaty

ganization
Nadzab, 303
Nagasaki, 398
Naktong river, 456
Napoleon, 157
Napoleon III, 90
Nashville (Cruiser), 326, 339, 341,

348

Nasugbu, 369

National Aeronautical Society, 159
National Guard, 61-62, 64, 66,

153, 161-162, 165, 202, 210, 219,

297

National Press Club, 159
Nebraska (battleship), 50, 53
Negros, 383

Nehru, Jawaharlal, 462, 472, 517
Nesles, 80

New Britain Island, 304
New Caledonia, 280
New Deal, 158, 201, 202, 321, 322
New Guinea, 278, 282, 286, 287,

291, 296, 298, 301, 302, 304, 306,

3*3' 3*5> 3*7> 3i9> 338» 34i» 35*>

356, 390, 468

New York Daily Compass, 448
New York Sun, 19, 63
New York Times, The, 63, no,

128-129, 145, 190
New York World, 63, 87
New Zealand, 278, 286
Nichols Field, 220, 373
Nimitz, Chester William, 284, 285,

315, 316, 326, 33°. 333> 334> 335»

338, 34<>> 347> 348, 354, 358, 363,

375, 376> 386, 394> 399> 422

Or

347*

149,
282,

288,
307,
35**

111,

297,
33^

374,

529

North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
477» 5°2> 503

O'Donnell, Emmett (Rosey), 466
Office of Inter- American Affairs, 422
Office of Strategic Services, 422
Office of War Information, 422
O'Keefe, Rev. Father Matthew, 8
Okinawa, 338, 351, 353, 363, 386, 387-

388, 399, 401, 402, 403, 449
O'Laughlin, John Callan, 159, 374
Oldendorf, Jesse B., 343
Olmsted, George, 105, 106
Olongapo, 261, 367
Open Door policy, 35, 441
Orange Plan, 137, 138, 198, 212
Ord, James, 170, 182, 191-192, 193
Osmefia, Sergio, 348, 349
Otjen, Theobald, 16
Oulahan, Richard V., 63
Ourcq river, 79, 82, 83, 84, 136

Pace, Frank, Jr., 453, 470, 474, 514
Pace, John T., 144, 147
Palau Islands, 233, 284
Pampanga river, 238, 363, 365
Panama Canal Commission, 67
Panay, 264, 350, 383
Pangatian, 363
Panuch, J. Anthony, 422
Paranaque, 370, 373
Parker, Frank, 92
Parker, George M., 230
Parsons, Captain, 5, 47
Pasig river, 370
Patton, George S., 143
Pearl Harbor, 216-217, 222, 223, 227,
233* 234, 239, 280, 322, 331, 332, 337,

423

Peleliu, 338, 339
Percival, General, 404
Perry, Matthew C., 177-178, 405
Pershing, John J., Army Chief of Staff,
107, no; given rank of General of
the Armies, 316; in Manchuria, 36;
MacArthur relieved as West Point
superintendent by, 111; Mexican ex
pedition, 61; officers under, failed to
receive promotions they deserved,
95* 163; opposition to Mac Arthur's
appointment as Army Chief of Staff,
127-128; pension, 148; promotion of
Marshall to brigadier general aided
by, 160-161, 162-163, 19^' recom
mended continuance of MacArthur
as Army Chief of Staff to Roosevelt,
165; Sultan of Jolo surrendered to,
in 1905, 385; West Point record, 32;
World War I, 64, 67, 70, 72, 73, 74-
75, 91, 92, 95, 97, 98, 107, 170, 173

530

Philippine Sea, Battle of the, 331
Philippines, Douglas' father first mili
tary governor of, 27-30; independ
ence, 137, 167, 181, 185, 187, 190-191,

250, 251, 252; MacArthur assigned
to, 34-35, no, 111, 112-116, 121-130,
167-209; military academy, 181

Phillipson, Irving J., 149, 156

Phoenix, U.S.S., 317

Pittsburgh, University of, MacArthur 's

address (June 9, 1932), 135-136
Pohang, Korea, 456
Poling, Daniel A., 134
Port Arthur, 35, 355, 381
Port Darwin, 287, 319
Port Gloucester, 314
Port Moresby, 282, 284, 285, 287, 288,

290, 291, 292, 294, 295, 302, 313, 314,

328
Potsdam Conference, 390, 393-394, 398,

429, 441, 442

President Hoover (ship), 180
President Lincoln (boat), 70
Prince of Wales (battleship), 206, 228
Princess Augusta Bay, 306
Psychological warfare, 389, 466
Public Works Administration, 153, 165
Pusan, Korea, 454, 456, 466, 469, 470
Pyongyang, Korea, 473, 475

Quakemeyer, John G., in
Quebec conference, 300, 308, 309, 340
Quezon, Manuel, 29-30, 113, 114, 123,
124, 138, 167-168, 180, 182, 183-192,
195, 210, 233, 240, 246, 248, 249, 250-

251, 252, 253, 255, 256, 259, 349, 439
Quez6n, Mrs. Manuel, 182, 183

Rabaul, New Britain, 282, 284, 285, 286,
287, 301, 302, 303, 306, 307, 318-319

Racin, Korea, 466, 499

Rainbow Division, U. S. Army, 60-98,
136, 156

Rainbow Plans, 198

Rau, Benegal, 472

Rawlins, Fort, 7

Ray, H. G., 266

Read, George W., 114

Reilly, Henry J., 64, 67, 72, 156

Repulse (battleship), 228

Rhee, Syngman, 447, 451, 456, 471, 480

Richardson, James Otto, 216-217

Richardson, Robert C., 31, 114, 315,

332, 333

Richelderfer, L. H., 142
Ridgway, Matthew B., 500, 501, 513,

514, 515, 516, 518
Robenson, John A., 235
Rockhampton, 292, 294
Rockwell, Francis, 241, 242, 266, 269,

270

Rogers, Paul P., 266
Rogers, Theo, 371
Rommel, Erwin, 298, 365
Romulo, Carlos, 246, 255, 267, 348
Roosevelt, Mrs. Eleanor, 145, 188
Roosevelt, Franklin D., air mail turned
over to Army Air Corps by, 158-160;
Atlantic conference, 206, 209; atti
tude toward war against Japan, 300;
Brain Trusters, 174; Cairo confer
ence, 312, 354, 445; Casablanca con
ference, 298; China policy, 441;
Churchill's influence on, 202-203,
244; Congressional Medal of Honor
bestowed on MacArthur by, 281;
death, 376, 390, 514; expanding pow
ers of, 166-167; fourth term, 308, 312,
316, 324, 332, 333, 379; inauguration,
149; MacArthur Day, 281; MacArthur
offered post of high commissioner,
Philippines, by, 168-169; MacArthur
relieved as Army Chief of Staff by,
172-174, 189; MacArthur's removal
from Philippines, 250, 256-258;
Marshall appointed Army Chief of
Staff by, 196; new military ranks and
titles proposed by, 316; Pacific area
visited by, 331-337; personal aide,
194; Philippine Army ordered mo
bilized under MacArthur by, 208;
Philippines defense, 212, 245, 246,
250, 251, 252-253, 255, 256-258, 261,
278; plan for pastoralization of Ger
many, 299-300; pledge to Stalin for a
second front, 298; Potsdam confer
ence influenced by, 442; Quebec con
ference, 300, 308, 309, 340; Quez6n's
letter to, re MacArthur, 187-188; re
armament program, 198; recognition
of Russia (1933), 175; relations with
MacArthur, 151-152, 153, 157-160,
165, 166-167, 171, 172-174, 183-184,
187-189, 191, 208, 280, 281, 302, 310,
311, 320-321, 33i-337» 375' 46i; State
Department under, 414; Tehran con
ference, 313; third term, 201-202;
trade relations with Japan broken
off, 207; unconditional surrender
proposition for Germany, 299, 301,
379; war plotted by, 222-223; Wood-
ring's resignation as Secretary of
War, 200-201; World War II, 200,
216, 234, 301, 309, 399; Yalta agree
ment, 355-356, 379~38l» 398* 5io
Roosevelt, Theodore, 36, 37, 38, 128,

441
Roosevelt and Hopkins (Sherwood),

163

Root, Elihu, 441
Rosenman, Samuel I., 393
Rosenthal, Aaron B., 63
Roy, H. J., 302

Russia, 129-130, 156-157, 175-176, 199,
207, 300, 301, 355, 441-442; invasion
by Hitler, 206, 207-208, 216, 234, 244,
298; Lend-lease, 206, 211, 298;
Roosevelt's recognition of (i933)»
175; war declared against Japan,
396-397

Saidor, 325

Saigon, 208

St. Mihiel, 84

Saipan, 330-331, 338, 358, 386

Sakhalin Island, 381

Salamaua, 282, 284, 286, 301, 303, 304,

309
Sam Houston, Fort, 13, 14

Samar, 344, 351

San Bernardino Strait, 342, 343» 344»

345> 346
Sanananda, 291
Santa Barbara, 360, 361
Santa Cruz Islands, 285
Santo Tomas University, 363, 364, 365,

366, 367, 370, 372
Savo island, 287

Sayre, Francis, 240, 248, 251, 252, 259
Sayre, Mrs. Francis, 253
Scott, Hugh Lenox, 44, 58, 59, 61
Screws, Bill, 68

Seaman, Horace Martin, 46, 47
Sears, Roebuck & Co., 44
Seawolf (submarine), 236
Sedan, 85, 90-94
Selden, Fort, 10, 11,318
Selective Service Act, 202
Seoul, Korea, 469, 473, 501, 504, 506
Sergy, 80

Service, John Stewart, 414, 415, 4*6
Sharp, William F., 259, 263-264, 266,

270

Sheridan, Philip Henry, 5
Sherman (transport), 34
Sherman, Forrest, 315, 316, 394, 395,

396

Sherr, Joe R., 266
Sherwood, Robert E., 163
Shidehara, Baron, 421-422
Shigemitsu, Mamoru, 404
Siam, 335

Siberia, 156-157, 175* *77» 3°<>» 44°
Silvermaster Spy Ring, 299
Simpson, K. L., 63
Singapore, 228, 232, 239, 254, 34*
Singj in, Korea, 496
Sinuiju, Korea, 479, 484
Sladen, Fred W., no
Slocum, S. L. H., 78-79
Smith, Charles B., 453
Smith, Hal H., 63
Smith, Truman, 155
Smith, Walter Bedell, 212, 467
Snell, Earl, 140

531

Soldiers and Sailors Club, MacArthur's
address (April 6, 1927), 119-120

Solomon Islands, 303, 306

Somervell, Brehon Burke, 309

Sorge Red spy ring, 431

Soule, Robert, 372, 373

South China Sea, 358

Spaatz, Carl, 383, 403

Spanish- American War, 156

Spruance, Raymond A., 387

Stalin, Joseph, 176-177, 267, 208, 217,
298, 300, 309, 313, 354, 355, 379, 380,
381, 382, 390, 394, 398, 424, 441, 442,

5i7

Stanton, Fort, 11

Stark, H. R., 203, 218, 222, 223, 238, 280

State Department, infiltration by left-
wingers, 422-423; power exercised by
U.N. on, 480-481

Stettinius, Edward, 392, 414

Stilwell, Joseph W., 387

Stimson, Henry L., 122, 123-124, 137,
201, 216, 252, 299, 392, 393

Stivers, Charles P., 266

Storey, Tony, 452, 484, 520

Stotesbury, Edward, 112

Stotesbury, Mrs. Edward, no, 112

Stotsenburg, Fort, 360

Stratemeyer, George E., 383, 449, 466

Strong, George V., 199

Subic Bay, 226, 367

Sukchon, Korea, 473

Summerall, Charles P., 67, 70, 72, 85-
86, 88-89, 9°» 92» 95* 117» 1]L9> 121>
125, 126

Sun Oil Company, 408

Sunchon, Korea, 473

Surigao Strait, 342, 343, 353

Sutherland, Richard, 193, 209-210, 215,
223, 228, 242, 257, 266, 271, 302, 315,
316, 341, 348, 395-396, 400, 403, 404,
438

Suzuki, Kantaro, 390, 420

Sverdrup, Jack, 288, 292, 303

Sweetser, Arthur, 63

Swift, I. P., 360, 361, 364

Swing, Joseph M., 372, 402

Tacloban, 346, 350, 355

Tacloban Bay, 343

Taft, Robert A., 449

Taft, William Howard, 27, 28, 39-40

Tagaytay Ridge, 372

Tanahmerah, 326

Tanaka Memorial, 129

Tarawa, 330

Tarbuck, Ray, 325, 340, 341, 345, 351

Tehran conference, 313

Thayer, Superintendent (West Point),

99

Theobald, Robert A., 222
Thomas (transport), 35

532

Thomas, George Henry, 5

Tighe, Matthew F., 63

Tinian, 331

Tinley, Matthew A., 68

Together (Marshall), 162

Togo, Admiral, 35

Tojo, Hideki, 215

Tokyo, 338, 395, 396

Towers, Jack, 315

Tray wick, Colonel, 264

Treat, Charles G., 58

Truk, 233, 284

Truman, Harry S., becomes President,
390, 392; China policy, 426, 449; For
mosa policy, 449, 458, 459; Japanese
occupation, 409, 412, 416; Japanese
surrender, 393, 399; Korea, 451, 452,

453» 474-477* 4^2, 497> 499> 5°5> 5°6>
510; MacArthur appointed Com-
mander-in-Chief in Korea by, 456;
MacArthur appointed Supreme Al
lied Commander by, 399; MacArthur
relieved of command by, 513-518;
MacArthur visited by, at Wake Is
land, 474-477; Marshall sent to
China by, 423; opinion of Marshall,
467; Potsdam conference, 394, 441;
relations with MacArthur, 442-443,
462-463, 465-466, 470, 474-477> 500*
510, 513-518; State Department un
der, 414; statement relative to relief
of Mac Arthur, 515-516; tirade against
Eisenhower, 477

Tuilerie Farm, 87, 89, 90

Tulagi, 284, 286

Tunis, 298

Turner, Richmond K., 387

Twining, Nathan, 383

Tydings-McDuffie Act, 137

Tyndall, Robert H., 68

Ulio, J. A., 97

United Nations, 355, 381, 414, 424, 427,

430; Korea and the, 446-516
United Press, 63, 448, 489
United States Joint Board Planning

Committee, 198
United States Military Academy, see

West Point
United States Naval Academy, 13

Valdefuente bridge, 365

Van Fleet, James A., 518

Vandenberg, Arthur H., 311

Vera Cruz, 49-60

Vernon, Leroy T., 63

Veterans of Foreign Wars, cancellation

of MacArthur's speech to, 462-463
Vicksburg (American gunboat), 29
Vigan, 229, 230
Villa, Pancho, 61
Vincent, John Carter, 414, 415, 423

Virginia Military Institute, 8, 42, 438

Visayas, 383

Vitiaz Strait, 301, 302, 304, 306, 313,

325. 330
Voice of Freedom, The, 246, 267

Wainwright, Jonathan M., MacArthur's
nomination for Presidential candi
date seconded by, 444; Philippines
defense, 220, 229-230, 232, 238, 243,
260, 261, 262-263, 264, 265, 400; West
Point record, 32

Wakde, 328, 330

Wake Island, 474-477, 478

Walker, Garahl, 15

Walker, Walton, 479, 484, 486, 491, 492,
493» 5°o

War Plan Orange, 137, 138, 198, 212

Watson, Edwin M. (Pa), 194, 208

Wavell, Archibald Percival, 258, 259,
278

Wedemeyer, Albert C., 299, 416, 424,
425, 426, 446

Weeks, John W., 107

West Point, 4, 7, 13, 59, 64, 68, 71, 87,
96, 114, 116, 164, 165, 170, 173, 175,
181, 192, 268, 275, 281, 294, 332, 369;
MacArthur's commencement address
(1933), 153-154; MacArthur's days as
superintendent of, 98-111, 114, 115,
!55» 329* 433' MacArthur's student
days at, 15-17, 18-27, 3°-33> 35> 44>
67, 105, 117, 173, 174, 434; motto,
440; Philippines military academy
modeled after, 181

West Texas Military Academy, 14-15,
240

Wewak, 303, 325

Weygand, Maxime, 136

Wheat, Buck, 102-104, 112

Wherry, Kenneth $.,412

White, Harry Dexter, 299

White, William Allen, 203

Whitehead, Ennis, 302, 303, 319, 384

Whitney, Courtney, 403, 422, 438-439,
45°> 474

Whole of Their Lives, The (Gitlow),

146

Wilcox, Grafton S., 63
Williams, Aubrey, 158
Willkie, Wendell, 311, 333
Willoughby, Charles A., 266, 288, 301,

3*7> 3*5> 4oo, 431, 448, 450
Wilson, Francis H., 266
Wilson, Woodrow, 60, 61
Wingate, Fort, 3, 9, 10
Winship, Blanton, 117
Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 24th, 4-

5, 18, 45, 69, 117
Wolf, Walter B., 72, 73, 74, 75, 82, 83,

86, 87, 93> 97
Wolmi, 457, 468

Wonsan, Korea, 473, 479, 493, 496
Wood, Leonard, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 56,

60, 114, 122, 128
Wood, Robert E., 44, 67, 72
Woodring, Harry H., 173, 180, 185, 189,

200-201

Wooten, Ralph M., 303
World Tomorrow, The, 134, 136
World War I, 60-98
World War II, 156, 175, 196, 199-200,

205-206

World War III, 496, 497
Wurtsmith, officer, 384

Yale University, 72, 193

Yalta Agreement, 355-356, 379-381, 390,

392, 398, 467, 481, 510
Yalu river, 475, 476, 478, 479, 480, 481,

483, 484, 487, 493, 495, 503, 504, 517
Yamashita, Tomoyoki, 341, 348, 360,

366-367, 386
"Yamashita Line/' 348
Yamato, 344
Yap, 284, 340-341
Yoshida, Shigeru, 421
Young, W. H., 311

Zachary, R. A., 63

Zambales mountains, 360-361, 367

Zamboanga, 383, 386

583

this

book

was

presented

to

the people

of Kansas City

as a gift

f ro rn

FRAZIER HUNT has had the unique ex
perience of covering for newspapers
and magazines every war and revolution
from the original Mexican revolution
and World War I down through the
great Pacific campaigns of World War
II. Following four months at General
MacArthur's headquarters and New
Guinea in 1944, he wrote Mac Arthur
and the War Against Japan. For a num
ber of years he was one of America's
well-known radio commentators.
Born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1885,
the rugged Frazier Hunt has traveled
far and wide and has met most of the
world's great personalities of the last
four decades. The Untold Story of
Douglas Mac Arthur is his fourteenth
book.

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